The Difficulty Was To Catch It, Because Its Quills Are Long And Sharp; But Next Evening The Murungs Brought It To Me Enmeshed In A Strong Net, And How To Kill It Was The Next Question.

The Dayaks at once proposed to shoot it with the sumpitan - a very good scheme, though I fancied that darkness might interfere.

However, in the light of my hurricane lamp one man squatted on the ground and held the animal, placing it in a half upright position before him. The executioner stepped back about six metres, a distance that I thought unnecessary, considering that if the poisoned dart hit the hand of the man it would be a most serious affair. He put the blow-pipe to his mouth and after a few moments the deadly dart entered the porcupine at one side of the neck. The animal, which almost at once began to quiver, was freed from the entangling net, then suddenly started to run round in a small circle, fell on his back, and was dead in less than a minute after being hit.

It was a wonderful exhibition of the efficiency of the sumpitan and of the accuracy of aim of the man who used the long heavy tube. The pipe, two metres long, is held by the native with his hands close to the mouth, quite contrary to the method we should naturally adopt. The man who coolly held the porcupine might not have been killed if wounded, because the quantity of poison used is less in the case of small game than large. The poison is prepared from the sap of the upas tree, antiaris toxicaria, which is heated until it becomes a dark paste. It is a fortunate fact that these extremely efficient weapons, which noiselessly bring down birds and monkeys from great heights, are not widely distributed over the globe. If one is hit by the dart which is used when destined for man or big game, and which has a triangular point, it is said that no remedy will avail.

Rajimin, the taxidermist, had frequent attacks of malaria with high fever, but fortunately he usually recovered rapidly. One day I found him skinning birds with his pulse registering one hundred and twenty-five beats a minute. I engaged a Murung to assist in making my zoological collections, and he learned to skin well and carefully, though slowly. Judging from the number of long-nosed monkeys brought in, they must be numerous here. These animals are at times met in droves of a hundred or more passing from branch to branch through the woods. When old they cannot climb. One morning this Dayak returned with three wah-wahs, and related that after the mother had been shot and had fallen from the tree, the father seized the young one and tried to escape, but they were both killed by the same charge.

On account of adverse weather conditions most of the skins here spoiled, in some degree at least, in spite of all efforts, especially the fleshy noses of the long-nosed monkeys.

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