42 THROUGH CENTRAL BORNEO 



self included, their bite is poisonous, and on the lower part 

 of the legs produces wounds that may take weeks to cure. 



One day native honey was brought in, which had been 

 found in a iiollow tree. It was sweet, but thin, and had 

 no pronounced Havour. A few minutes after the honey 

 had been left on a plate in my tent there arrived a number 

 of large yellow hornets, quite harmless apparently, but 

 persevering in their eagerness to feast upon the honey. 

 During the foggy aftern(X)n they gathered in increased 

 numbers and were driven off with dithculty. Tiie tem- 

 porary removal of the plate failed to diminish their per- 

 sistence until finally, at dusk, they disappeared, only to 

 return again in the morning, bringing others much larger 

 in size and more vicious in aspect, and the remaining sweet 

 was consumed with incredible rapidity; in less than two 

 hours a considerable quantity of the honey in the comb as 

 well as liquid was finished by no great number of hornets. 



Later several species of ants found their way into my 

 provision boxes. A large one, dark-gray, almost black, 

 in colour, more than a centimetre long, was very fond of 

 sweet things. According to the Malays, if irritated it is 

 able to sting painfully, but in spite of its formidable ap- 

 pearance it is timid and easily turned away, so for a long 

 time 1 put up with its activities, though gradually these 

 ants got to be a nuisance by walking into my cup, which 

 they sometimes filled, or into my drinking-water. An- 

 other species, much smaller, which also was fond of sugar, 

 pretended to be dead when discovered. One day at ten 

 o'clock in the morning, I observed two of the big ants, 

 which I had come to look upon as peaceful, in violent com- 



