A MONTH WITH THE DTAKS. 421 



of gibbons Avhistling in the jungle close by, and in twenty minutes 

 we were under them. Shot a fine old couple, male and female, and 

 a young one belonging to the latter. Allowed two other small ones 

 to get away on account of their tender age. 



" November 1th. — Out hunting all the forenoon. Came upon 

 a troop of gibbons, had a fair chance at an old female and let her 

 get away through sheer stupidity ; didn't fire when I had a chance, 

 hoping to get a better one. Saw a number of traj)s set by the 

 Dyaks to catch argus pheasants and small quadrupeds. In this in- 

 stance a low hedge of green boughs had been built from one ravine 

 to another across a ridge in the most inviting part of the forest. 

 The hedge is a cai-eless affair, about two feet high, but withal so 

 cunningly made that I actually walked into one of the traps with- 

 out seeing it ! At every rod or so a clean gap is left just wide 

 enough for a bii'd or small mammal to walk through without sus- 

 picion, and while in mid-passage he will suddenly be yanked heaven- 

 ward by a ' twitch-up,' as we boys used to call it. 



*' The Dyaks make this very effective little engine of destruction 

 by bending down a stout bush close by the gap in the hedge, 

 previously trimming off all the branches, tying a thin strip of soft 

 bark to the end of the bush and making a noose at the other end 

 of the thong. Then a little platform about a foot squai-e is made 

 with small palm-stems, a trigger is set underneath it to hold down 

 the noose and hold up the platform, then the noose is j)laced uj^on 

 the latter and opened as wide as the platform will allow. 



" When the bird, or small beast steps upon the platform it in- 

 stantly falls, the thong is freed, the bush springs up, and the 

 noose is jerked tight around the leg of the -victim. Of course the 

 bird is jerked high in the air, sometimes dislocating the leg, and is 

 bound to hang there until the traps are visited. The Dyak twitch- 

 up is very effective, but the objections to it are that it punishes 

 the victim cruelly before it dies or is found and killed, and also 

 that the noose, in most cases, chafes off the feathers of the thigh 

 and sometimes even the hair and skin from the legs of mammals. 

 In that particular hedge I counted eleven traps, all very neatly 

 constructed. We also saw a machine called a peti, to kill wild 

 pigs, which made me shudder. Three stout, little, two-inch sap- 

 lings had been selected which grew close beside a jungle path in 

 such a position that when cut off seven feet above grouud and tied 

 together at the top they formed a perfect tripod, leaning over the 

 path. A fourth sapling was cut, about five feet of the stem taken, 



