72 A NATURALIST IN BORNEO 



way. My specimen spent much time stalking over the 

 large grounds which surrounded the Museum, looking 

 for frogs, lizards, and such-like small deer. One day 

 an amusing rencontre between my Adjutant and a 

 small Malay boy was witnessed. A broad gravel path 

 leads across the Museum grounds, and along this at 

 noon was walking a Malay urchin, a string of fish 

 recently purchased for his parents' dinner dangling 

 from his hand. The Adjutant Bird spied these tasty 

 morsels and soon was alongside the little boy, making 

 vicious dabs with his huge, powerful beak at the fish ; 

 the urchin hastily plucked a fish from the string, 

 threw it from him as far as he could, and took to his 

 heels. It was the work of but a few moments for the 

 Adjutant to retrieve the jettisoned fish and take up the 

 pursuit again. Once more a fish was sacrificed, and 

 with the same result as before, and finally, when their 

 number was reduced to a scanty few, the unfortunate 

 infant flung all to his insatiable pursuer and burst into 

 tears. When the Adjutant Bird expects food to be 

 thrown to it, it squats down so that the entire length 

 of the metatarsi rests on the ground and then nods its 

 head up and down, uttering the while a continuous 

 harsh grating sound like a rusty saw cutting through 

 wood ; at other times it is a very silent bird. 



Few birds exhibit a more remarkable adaptation of 

 structure to a specialized way of catching prey than 

 the Indian Darter, Plotus melanogaster. This species 

 was very common in North-East Sarawak at the 

 mouths of the Trusan and Limbang Rivers. The birds 

 could be seen perched in trees on the river-banks, 

 with the wings widely spread out and the long neck 

 bent near its base at an angle. The Darter feeds on 



