May 27, 180-—It Is always interesting to me, record first impressions after a hart absence: Up tu the Shangtang hill, the English Cuckoo (Asiatic vanely) is sounding his mellow note, but in spite of the efforts of the Evening Primrose" to paint the yellow, the general colour remains a lift wild flowers are, so to speak, straining Teash to add a little colour to the country: Dut sun and rain must do some further work to paint the lawns green and to bring back vivid life to the hillsides scraped bare by fuel-gatherers in winter: the sleeping beauty all ready to awake at the summer sun's frst kiss, Down in Shanghai the rich foliage of the trees and the brilliant greens of grass and weeds bear eloquent witness to the fact, that wwe are at Jeast a month ahead of the Northern territory: here the strident voice of the common Cuckoo's Indian cousin sounds high above the bird chorus, while Blackbirds, "Bulbuls, Orioles, and even the plaintive-voiced Minivet, are doing their best to make the general effect a little musical, In my garden I find the first broods of the Blackbirds out on the lawn trying to prove by their fawn-coloured spotted waist coats that they are, indeed, true Thrushes. for this is the uniform they will wear until they reach the adult stage. Families of Grey Tils—small_in size but great in numbers—are squeaking among the trees demanding food from their overworked parents; they are wearing the pinky-redwalsteoats. of their frst plumage, which will be exchanged later for the Black apron of their later years. Out in the wooded corner of Jessfield the magnificent voice of a Hwamel drowns the song of all other: musicians; he is a bird of the hills and has no_ business here. Is he an "escape"....or can it be that he has mistaken Mr. Gimson's Himalayas for tael hills? 1 wonder.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.