As these last are harvested the feeding area of the buntings becomes
restricted, so that eventually every patch of standing crop is alive
with buntings. The spring cereals ripen in the south earlier than in
northern India, so that the cheerful buntings are able to perform
their migratory journey by easy stages and find abundant food all
along the route.

There are two species of corn-bunting--the red-headed (_Emberiza
luteola_) and the black-headed (_E. melanocephala_). In both the lower
plumage is bright yellow.

Among the earliest of the birds to forsake the plains of Hindustan are
the grey-lag goose and the pintail duck. These leave Bengal in
February, but tarry longer in the cooler parts of the country. Of the
other migratory species many individuals depart in March, but the
greater number remain on into April, when they are caught up in the
great migratory wave that surges over the country. The destination of
the majority of these migrants is Tibet or Siberia, but a few are
satisfied with the cool slopes of the Himalayas as a summer resort in
which to busy themselves with the sweet cares of nesting. Examples of
these more local migrants are the grey-headed and the verditer
flycatchers, the Indian bush-chat and, to some extent, the paradise
flycatcher and the Indian oriole. The case of the oriole is
interesting. All the Indian orioles (_Oriolus kundoo_) disappear from
the Punjab and the United Provinces in winter. In the former province
no other oriole replaces _O. kundoo_, but in the United Provinces the
black-headed oriole (_O. melanocephalus_) comes to take the place of
the other from October to March. When this last returns to the United
Provinces in March the greater number of _melanocephalus_ individuals