Some human beings may fail to notice the courtship of the king-crow, but none can be so deaf and blind as to miss the love-making of the gorgeous roller or blue jay.  Has not everyone marvelled at the hoarse cries and rasping screams which emanate from these birds as they fling themselves into the air and ascend and descend as though they were being tossed about by unseen hands?

Their wonderful aerial performances go on continually in the hours of daylight throughout the months of March and April; at this season the birds, beautiful although they be, are a veritable nuisance, and most people gratefully welcome the comparative quiet that supervenes after the eggs have been laid.  The madness of the March hare is mild compared with that of the March roller.  It is difficult to realise that the harsh and angry-sounding cries of these birds denote, not rage, but joy.

The great exodus of the winter visitors from the plains of India begins in March.  It continues until mid-May, by which time the last of the migratory birds will have reached its distant breeding ground.

This exodus is usually preceded by the gathering into flocks of the rose-coloured starlings and the corn-buntings.  Large noisy congregations of these birds are a striking feature of February in Bombay, of March in the United Provinces, and of April in the Punjab.

Rose-coloured starlings spend most of their lives in the plains of India, going to Asia Minor for a few months each summer for nesting purposes.  In the autumn they spread themselves over the greater part of Hindustan, most abundantly in the Deccan.

In the third or fourth week of February the rosy starlings of Bombay begin to form flocks.  These make merry among the flowers of the coral tree, which appear first in South India, and last in the Punjab.  The noisy flocks journey northwards in a leisurely manner, timing their arrival at each place simultaneously with the flowering of the coral trees.  They feed on the nectar provided by these flowers and those of the silk-cotton tree.  They also take toll of the ripening corn and of the mulberries which are now in season.  Thus the rosy starlings reach Allahabad about the second week in March, and Lahore some fifteen days later.

The head, neck, breast, wings and tail of the rosy starling are glossy black, and the remainder of the plumage is pale salmon in the hen and the young cock, and faint rose-colour in the adult cock.

Rosy starlings feed chiefly in the morning and the late afternoon.  During the hottest part of the day they perch in trees and hold a concert, if such a term may be applied to a torrent of sibilant twitter.

Buntings, like rosy starlings, are social birds, and are very destructive to grain crops.

As these last are harvested the feeding area of the buntings becomes restricted, so that eventually every patch of standing crop is alive with buntings.  The spring cereals ripen in the south earlier than in northern India, so that the cheerful buntings are able to perform their migratory journey by easy stages and find abundant food all along the route.