In a day or two a tinge of green is apparent all over the landscape, and in five or six days the fresh leaves sprouting forth, and the young grass shooting up, give an appearance of spring which it requires weeks of a colder climate to produce.

The birds, which in the hot, dry, windy season had been silent, now burst forth into merry twittering songs, and are busy building their nests.

Some of them, indeed, hatch several times a year.

The lowering of the temperature, by rains or other causes, has much the same effect as the increasing mildness of our own spring.

The earth teems with myriads of young insects; in some parts of the country hundreds of centipedes, myriapedes, and beetles emerge from their hiding-places, somewhat as our snails at home do; and in the evenings the white ants swarm by thousands.