JUNGLE HUNTER 269 



There were no noises in this jungle except early in 

 the morning and late at dusk, when a bird I never 

 saw called in voice extraordinarily harsh and far 

 reaching. 



Through all the time I was in Sumatra I kept 

 my eye constantly open for that most marvellously 

 plumaged bird, the argus pheasant; but though I 

 once found a small feather, I never saw the bird 

 itself. Indeed, few have ever seen it in the wild. 

 They are the shyest and most difficult to approach,, 

 perhaps, of all living things in the world. 



Nearly all the time it rained, but that did not 

 dampen the activity of the mosquitoes, which raged 

 persistently in swarms around us. Sometimes 

 when tracking rhino they buzzed about my head in 

 such multitudes that I could literally get a handful 

 at every stroke. I anointed my face with penny- 

 royal, purchased for the purpose from a wise drug- 

 gist who, not having ventured away from paved 

 streets, insisted there was nothing like it to keep 

 off jungle pests. When not actually hunting, mos- 

 quitoes and small flies and red ants combined to 

 make life quite stirring. I used to seek the rude r 

 sometimes flesh-tearing slap of the jungle brush 

 against my face and head— it cleared the field of 

 mosquitoes for the moment— and often I pushed my 

 way through bushes without using the jungle knife, 

 simply to brush away the swarms of insects that 



