The bird-catchers spend six weeks every year in obtaining cattle-egret plumes in this manner.  They sell the plumes to middle-men, who dispose of them to those who smuggle them out of India.

If stuffed birds were used as decoys and the plumes of the captured birds were snipped off with scissors instead of being pulled out, the operation could be carried on without any cruelty, and, if legalised and supervised by the Government, it could be made a source of considerable revenue.

JUNE

  ’Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun
  Darts on the head direct his forceful rays;
  O’er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye
  Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all
  From pole to pole is undistinguish’d blaze.

* * * * *

  All-conquering heat, oh, intermit thy wrath,
  And on my throbbing temples potent thus
  Beam not so fierce! incessant still you flow,
  And still another fervent flood succeeds. 
  Pour’d on the head profuse.  In vain I sigh,

* * * * *

Thrice happy he who on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest crown’d
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines. 

          
                                                              J. THOMSON.

With dancing feet glad peafowl greet
Bright flash and rumbling cloud;
Down channels steep red torrents sweep;
The frogs give welcome loud;

* * * * *

No stars in skies, but lantern-flies
Seem stars that float to earth. 
WATERFIELD, Indian Ballads.

There are two Indian Junes—­the June of fiction and the June of fact.  The June of fiction is divided into two equal parts—­the dry half and the wet half.  The former is made up of hot days, dull with dust haze, when the shade temperature may reach 118 degrees, and of oppressive nights when the air is still and stagnant and the mercury in the thermometer rarely falls below 84 degrees.  Each succeeding period of four-and-twenty hours seems more disagreeable and unbearable than its predecessor, until the climax is reached about the 15th June, when large black clouds appear on the horizon and roll slowly onwards, accompanied by vivid lightning, loud peals of thunder and torrential rain.  In the June of fact practically the whole month is composed of hot, dry, dusty, oppressive days; for the monsoon rarely reaches Northern India before the last week of the month and often tarries till the middle of July, or even later.

The first rain causes the temperature to fall immediately.  It is no uncommon thing for the mercury in the thermometer to sink 20 degrees in a few minutes.  While the rain is actually descending the weather feels refreshingly cool in contrast to the previous furnace-like heat.  Small wonder then that the advent of the creative monsoon is more heartily welcomed in India than is spring in England.  No sound is more pleasing to the human ear than the drumming of the first monsoon rain.