then hangs a few feet above the earth like a blue-grey diaphanous
cloud.

The cold increases throughout the hours of darkness. In the Punjab
hoar-frosts form daily; and in the milder United Provinces the
temperature often falls sufficiently to allow of the formation of thin
sheets of ice. Towards dawn mists collect which are not dispersed
until the sun has shone upon them for several hours. The vultures
await the dissipation of these vapours before they ascend to the upper
air, there to soar on outstretched wings and scan the earth for food.

On New Year's Day the wheat, the barley, the gram, and the other
Spring crops are well above the ground, and, ere January has given
place to February, the emerald shoots of the corn attain a height of
fully sixteen inches. On these the geese levy toll.

Light showers usually fall in January. These are very welcome to the
agriculturalist because they impart vigour to the young crops. In the
seasons when the earth is not blessed with the refreshing winter rain
men and oxen are kept busy irrigating the fields. The cutting and the
pressing of the sugar-cane employ thousands of husbandmen and their
cattle. In almost every village little sugar-cane presses are being
worked by oxen from sunrise to sunset. At night-time the country-side
is illumined by the flames of the _megas_ burned by the rustic
sugar-boilers.

January is the month in which the avian population attains its
maximum. Geese, ducks, teal, pelicans, cormorants, snake-birds and
ospreys abound in the rivers and _jhils_; the marshes and swamps are
the resort of millions of snipe and other waders; the fields and