454 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



fetch a cocoa-nut. As he climbed the cocoa-nut palm, he 

 kept calling out, " Are tliey cooked yet ? " (" Mdsak belUm ? ") ; 

 and she replied, " Have you climbed it yet ? " (" Pdnjdt 

 MlUm ? "). Thus they went on wrangling, until they were 

 both turned into stick-insects, which still cry " Belum- 

 beldm /" in the jungle at night. Of course stick-insects do 

 not call out " Belum-belam ! " though this exclamation is 

 given them as a name ; but some sound of the kind appears 

 to be caused by the stems of the Malacca cane (Calamus 

 scipionum) being blown against one another in the wind; 

 and the stick-insect, whose common name, in the Siamese 

 States at any rate, is Hdntu Semdmhu, or " Spirit of the 

 Malacca Cane," is said to affect this plant particularly. In 

 fact, a sound has been wrongly attributed to an animal, the 

 animal has been named accordingly, and finally an elaborate 

 legend has grown up to explain the name. Explanatory 

 myths of the kind may become even more elaborate, and 

 may attempt to explain other matters besides names. 



There is a little black and scarlet flower-pecker — Dicceum 

 nigrimentum, 1 think — which is known as Burong Sepdh 

 Putrl, or " Princess's Quid of Betel Bird." No white man 

 who had ever seen a Malay woman chewing betel could 

 doubt the origin of the name — her blackened teeth and 

 scarlet saliva ; but the Malays have thought it necessary to 

 invent the following myth. The Owl was in love with the 

 Princess of the Moon, and asked her to marry him. Being 

 too polite to give him a direct refusal, she spat out the betel 

 which she was chewing, and said that she would be his, when 

 he returned it to her. But the betel was immediately trans- 

 formed into the Burong Sepdh Putrl, which the Owl is for 

 ever pursuing. This also explains why owls hoot at night — : 

 they are making love to the Princess of the Moon. 



The stories already told (for several of which I ani 

 indebted to Mr W. W. Skeat's '' Malay Magic ") have this in 

 common — that they are all theories constructed to explain 

 zoological facts ; although, like many other theories, they are 

 built up upon foundations that are not always accurate, and 

 although there are many persons — in their case the persons 

 happen to be savages, or rather barbarians — who look upon 



