out bare, gaunt, and thorny. Then, after an interval, they hang out a signboard of scarlet, or crimson, flowers at the end of every naked branch, to invite the weary wayfarer to stop and have a drink. For each separate blossom is a flowing bowl, and the liquor in it is as delicious to a bibulous bird as "sherris sack" was to Falstaff. Every tree becomes a public-house and a scene of revelry and riot. The Crows are there, of course, and the King Crows and the Mynas, and even the temperate Bulbul and the demure Coppersmith, and many another, and here and there a Palm Squirrel, taking his drink with the rest, like a foreigner. But the rowdiest element in all the motley rout is the jolly company of Rosy Starlings. They drink and swagger and babble and brawl, from before sunrise till the heat of noon-day sends them off to sleep. But the days of riot are soon over. By March the birds are getting their new costume for the fashionable season in their Syrian home. And a beautiful costume it is. The head, with its long, silky crest, and the breast and wings and tail are glossy black, but the back and all the underparts, from the breast downwards, are of a pure rosy-cream colour.
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