COLLECTING EXPEDITION TO BATANG PADANG. 149 
certain when the remainder of the men were coming up. In 
the afternoon I measured them and tested their eyesight. I 
have now tested the sight of between thirty and forty of both 
sexes, and there seems to be no doubt that they have very 
good sight asa race. Of those tested in Batang Padang, the 
shortest distance that the Army test spots could be seen was 
32 feet, and the longest gi feet. Intesting recruits for the 
British Army 20 feet is considered an average distance for 
these spots to be read, anda man reading at over that distance 
is classed as long-sighted, and under as short-sighted. In 
measuring the women there was great difficulty, as they did 
not know Malay and could not count. ‘This same difficulty 
has been met with by observers of other savages, but I got 
over it by giving the subject a handful of matches and explain- 
ing by signs that I wanted a match for each spot on the card 
held up. 
Early on the 5th these Sakais went down the hill and reach- 
ed Tapa on the next evening. 
All the botanical pressing paper was finished by. this time, 
so I had to stop collecting plants. 
On the evening of the 6th I shotavery handsome bird, with 
a snow white head, yellow breast and brown back, wings and 
tail, the latter being white tipped. The eyes were bright 
yellow and the bill pale flesh colour. It appears to be closely 
allied to the white-headed shrike-thrush of Burma and the 
mountains of India (Gampsorhynchus rufulus, Bl.). This 
bird gave us a great deal of trouble, for every night and early 
each morning a small party of them used to pass the camp, 
sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. They 
made a loud, shrill noise something lke the krekah monkey, 
and flew quickly from tree to tree. Day after day we went 
out into the jungle to watch for them, but as there was no 
certainty which side of the camp they would take, and as they 
always passed when it was so dark in the forest that neither 
they nor the sight of the gun could be distinguished, we were 
never successful until this night in shooting one, although we 
fired at them on five different occasions. The strange thing 
was that we never saw these birds in the day time. They 
passed up the hill to roost at nightfall and down again the 
