26 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
thus increasing the grassy area and, unintentionally, making a better 
feeding ground for the large sambur deer {Cervus equinus). The moon 
was waning and did not rise until about nine o’clock in the evening so 
until that hour the darkness was suitable for hunting. The natives 
had informed me that it was impossible to hunt on moonlight nights, 
and this statement was corroborated by my friend Olmeyer, who told 
me that when the moonlight was bright the animals were able to see 
the hunter and would clear off before he could approach within shoot- 
ing range. However, my own experience did not bear this out for I 
found that the reflector lamp was a complete shield to the person 
behind it. Though he could easily distinguish the animal in the moon- 
light, the hunter was quite invisible providing he kept directly behind 
his lamp. 
Half an hour after the sun had set the darkness was complete. The 
natives informed me that the “paiaw,” as the sambur deer is called 
locally, did not come out of the forests before eight or nine oclock and 
it would be useless to start hunting before that time. Our camp was 
at the edge of the water at high tide so when all was ready we walked 
along the shore for a quarter of a mile or more, in order that we might 
be able to walk back through the open grass and cleared country to 
windward, for of course it would be hopeless to try to approach any 
animals if they were to leeward and could get scent of us. The coast 
at Tandjong Batoe is low and mostly level. When the leeward end of 
the grassy area had been reached we halted on the beach to light our 
reflector lamp. I decided that I preferred to carry the lamp and have 
the boys walk in a line behind me, with the one nearest to me carrying 
my rifle. It was agreed that if a deer was seen, all the other boys should 
stay behind and only the gun bearer follow close to me as we approached 
the deer; that when I decided the animal was close enough to shoot, 
I would give the lamp to the gun bearer and take the rifle from him. 
As we started in from the shore we carefully wended our way through 
a mass of thorny bushes and tangled creepers and then came to a plain 
about a third of a mile wide by perhaps a mile and a half long, level 
for the most part and covered with long coarse grass known to the 
Malays as ‘‘alang alang.” Here and there were scattered a few forest 
trees, usually with a mass of vines and bushes about their trunks, and 
also some isolated coconut trees which had been planted by the people 
who had originally cleared the point. There was not a sign of a trail 
and we wandered about through the thick grass that on the little knolls 
came up to our waists, and, in the hollows, reached above our heads. 
