Trapping Wild Animals 
in Malay Jungles 
I 
CIRCUS DAYS 
T was the lure of the circus—the tug that every 
boy feels when a show comes to town—that 
started me on my career as a collector of wild 
animals. JI use the word collector rather than 
hunter, because hunting gives the idea of killing 
and, in my business, a dead animal is no animal at 
all. In fact, the mere hunting of the animals was 
simply the beginning of my work, and the task of 
capturing them uninjured was far more thrilling 
than standing at a distance and pulling a trigger. 
‘And then, when animals were safely in the net or. 
stockade, came the job of taking them back through 
the jungle to the port where they could be sold. 
It was often a case of continuous performance until 
I stood on the dock and saw the boats steam away 
with the cages aboard. And I wasn’t too sure of 
the success of my expedition even then, because the 
animals I had yanked from the jungle might die 
before they reached their destination. 
I was nearly seventeen when Sells Brothers’ Cir- 
cus came to Binghamton, New York, where I was 
3 
