116 A NATURALIST'S WANDEBINGS 



stated, for I have encountered it on hills and hot plateaus at 

 all elevations down to below 500 feet above the sea ; and it is 

 said not to extend to East Java. The native has a superstition 

 that if a man has fortitude enough to eat its flesh he will have 

 become proof against sickness of all kinds. 



In the forests on the southern slopes of the Malawar and the 

 Wayang, the banteng {Bos hanteng) lived in considerable 

 herds. The full-grown animal has a magnificent head of 

 horns,, and I was very anxious to secure such a trophy; but 

 only aftier the most wary and patient stalking was I able to 

 get within range of a herd of them, and then only of a calf 

 with immature horns. No more bellicose and dangerous 

 inhabitant of the forest than a wounded bull need hunter care 

 to encounter. 



The baying of troops of Adjags or wild dogs often reached 

 my ears," but in all my efforts to meet them in full hunt I was 

 disappointed. The native accounts — repeated to me in Sumatra 

 a year later, in identically the same terms — of their manner of 

 hunting credits them with so much intelligence, if not reason, 

 that I was anxious to witness the performance for myself. 

 Their food is chiefly the Kanfjil and the Muntjac deier, and the 

 natives in both countries averred that, on discovering a patch 

 of alang-alang grass in which these are hiding, the adjags first 

 urinate all the grass in a circle round their fugitives, then 

 drive them out, when, blinded and maddened by the pain of 

 the pungent urine in their eyes, they fall an easy prey to the 

 dogs. They are so exceedingly shy and wary that it is 

 difficult to secure a shot, and I obtained only a single speci- 

 men in bad condition. As soon as the fact became known I 

 had quite a crowd beseeching for shreds of its skin, or if not 

 that for a few hairs or some portion of its body, to suspend or 

 to burn with a form of words near their rice-fields, as a charm 

 to keep off evil influences from the crop. The whole of the 

 carcase was cut up by them, distributed, and carefully carried 

 away for this purpose ! 



Such forms of words are implicitly believed in, as I had an 

 opportunity one day of learning from a dealer, in' krisses, who 

 came to my house to trade. He was very anxious for me to 

 buy a blade, and carefully showed me how to select one that 

 would not fail me in time of need. To be a trusty weapon for 



