But alas! the physical relief brought by the monsoon is only temporary.  The temperature rises the moment the rain ceases to fall, and the prolonged breaks in the rains that occur every year render the last state of the climate worse than the first.  The air is so charged with moisture that it cannot absorb the perspiration that emanates from the bodies of the human beings condemned to existence in this humid Inferno.  For weeks together we live in a vapour-bath, and to the physical discomfort of perpetual clamminess is added the irritation of prickly heat.

Moreover, the rain brings with it myriads of torments in the form of termites, beetles, stinking bugs, flies, mosquitoes and other creeping and flying things, which bite and tease and find their way into every article of food and drink.  The rain also awakens from their slumbers the frogs that have hibernated and aestivated in the sun-baked beds of dried-up ditches and tanks.  These awakened amphibia fill the welkin with their croakings, which take the place of the avian chorus at night.  The latter ceases with dramatic abruptness with the first fall of monsoon rain.  During the monsoon the silence of the night is broken only by the sound of falling raindrops, or the croaking of the frogs, the stridulation of crickets innumerable, and the owlet’s feeble call.  Before the coming of the monsoon the diurnal chorus of the day birds begins to flag because the nesting season for many species is drawing to a close.  The magpie-robin still pours forth his splendid song, but the quality of the music in the case of many individuals is already beginning to fall off.  The rollers, which are feeding their young, are far less noisy than they were at the time of courtship.  The barbets and coppersmiths, although not so vociferous as formerly, cannot, even in the monsoon, be charged with hiding their lights under a bushel.  Towards the end of June the chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk, chuk of Horsfield’s nightjar is not often heard, but the bird continues to utter its soft churring note.  The iora’s cheerful calls still resound through the shady mango tope.  The sunbirds, the fantail flycatchers, the orioles, the golden-backed woodpeckers, the white-breasted kingfishers and the black partridges call as lustily as ever, and the bulbuls continue to twitter to one another “stick to it!” With the first fall of rain the tunes of the paradise flycatchers and the king-crows change.  The former now cry “Witty-ready wit,” softly and gently, while the calls of the latter suddenly become sweet and mellow.

Speaking generally, the monsoon seems to exercise a sobering, a softening influence on the voices of the birds.  The pied myna forms the one exception; he does not come into his full voice until the rains have set in.

The monsoon transfigures the earth.  The brown, dry, hard countryside, with its dust-covered trees, becomes for the time being a shallow lake in which are studded emerald islets innumerable.  Stimulated by the rain many trees put forth fresh crops of leaves.  At the first break in the downpour the cultivators rush forth with their ploughs and oxen to prepare the soil for the autumn crops with all the speed they may.