Page:Under the Sun.djvu/79



S Manfred speaking of the hot weather, of May-day in India? The hot weather is palpably here, and the heat of the sun makes the length of the twelve hours intolerable. The mango-bird glances through the groves, and in the early morning announces his beautiful but unwelcome presence with his merle-melody. The köel-cuckoo screams in a crescendo from some deep covert, and the crow-pheasant’s note has changed to a sound which must rank among nature’s strangest, — with the marsh-bittern’s weird booming, the drumming of the capercailzie, or the bell-tolling note of the prairie campanile. Now, too, the hornets are hovering round our eaves, and wasps reconnoitre our verandahs. “Of all God’s creatures,” said Christopher North, “the wasp is the only one eternally out of temper.” But he should have said this only of the British wasp. The vespæ of India, though, from their savage garniture of colors and their ghastly elegance, very formidable to look on, are