218 JIN ABU FINDS 



and heard; and innumerable butterflies fluttered 

 around the boats when we stopped near the banks. 

 But it was not a cheerful chorus ; even the butter- 

 flies were sombrely painted. Ever there came to 

 our ears the ascending and descending cry of the 

 monkey, which our scientific friends call the 

 " singing gibbon," but which in its home is known 

 as the wa wa. When this quaint-faced, long- 

 armed creature ceased its plaintive wail, there 

 came always at dusk a single mournful bird note, 

 repeated continually from deep in the jungle, 

 where you felt you must seek it out to stop its 

 madding monotone. Even the hoarse croaking of 

 the herons was a relief. Frequently by day the 

 poot-poot bird, with its chestnut body, wings and 

 tail, and black head and neck, gave voice to joy of 

 being, and now and again I heard the bird of two 

 notes, a high and a low one, which so often I had 

 met while hunting in Siam, and which is commonly 

 credited with warning the jungle Free People of 

 man's approach. 



And thus we went along. 



One afternoon, as in the gathering dusk I tried 

 to shoot, for examination, one of the great fruit- 

 bats* passing overhead in swiftly moving flocks, 

 we came to the tiny branch river we had been seek- 



* Pteropus medius; locally called flying fox and common to the 

 East Indies. The adult's body is about twelve inches long. 



