36 Naturalist at Large 



were traveling. I seized a broom handle or something of 

 the sort — I may even have snatched him up with my 

 hand — anyway he came right alongside the bow as we 

 went by and I pitched him up on the deck. He was a lovely 

 iridescent Burmese python about seven feet long, skin 

 freshly shed and an ideal size to preserve. Most specimens 

 are enormous and require too much alcohol. I had no con- 

 tainer on board which would hold this fellow, so I put 

 him in a pillowcase and kept him in my room until we got 

 back to Mandalay. Rarely will a snake strike while in a 

 bag and if he does his fine needlelike teeth will catch in the 

 fabric and indeed often fetch loose. This fellow as usual 

 made no attempt to escape. He rests in the museum at 

 Cambridge to this day as a souvenir of our journey. 



I think that the most amusing^ siojht we saw was one 

 which was repeated on a number of occasions. This was 

 a chance to watch the enormous droves of macaque mon- 

 keys working along the riverbank. They moved slowly 

 along, industriously turning over stones, pulling sticks and 

 logs about, the old individuals appearing very serious, while 

 the myriad youngsters gamboled about the tree tops over 

 the heads of the traveling band. Every once in a while a 

 young monkey would come down and sit on a branch 

 which was near the ground, and waiting for the crowd 

 to pass beneath him would seize one of the elders by the 

 tail and give it a mighty twitch. This would set all hands 

 to scolding and bickering and chasing one another, as 

 punishment was passed out down the line. 



Once we saw a smallish elephant come down to drink 

 and once up near Katha a giant cow. This big elephant 

 was so tame and paid so little attention to our clumsy- 



