t 173] 



CHAPTER THIRD. 



DESULTORY REMARKS, 

 The cultivator, when the fallow season arrives, 

 directs his attention to other modes of gains. He 

 may hunt the elephant for its ivory, and the rhi- 

 noceros for its horn and hide : — he may inrn birder, 

 and ensnare wild-fowl which abound in the jungles, 

 from the quail and partridge, up to the sea-fowl and 

 argus pheasant. The catching and preserving the 

 skins with the feathers on, of the larger kinds of king- 

 fishers is often a lucrative employment. These skins 

 are exported to China, where they are used for em* 

 broidering dresses. The value of good skins here is 

 about forty dollars the hundred. The Tennas- 

 serim birds are, it is said,. preserved better than these 

 here. The birder, having caught a hitrong pukaka, 

 or king-fisher, puts it into a cage furnished with a 

 trap-door, or merely ties it by the leg to a peg. A 

 thin net is suspended over the bird, which soon be- 

 gins to utter the discordant scream peculiar to it. 

 This attracts other king-fishers, and as these succes- 

 sively attack lire cajred bird, they are entrapped. 

 The birder, whenever a new bird is caught, substi- 

 tutes it tor the preceding one, because it makes a 

 greater noise. 



The ryot, in the interval alluded to, as also in that 

 betwixt harvest and seed-time, and seed-time and 

 harvest, often turns wood -cutter and floats down the 

 Prye and other rivers, from the forests of the interior. 



U 



