FASCICULI MALATENSES 
3 
on which are fastened, suspended from upright sticks, a number of bells, formed 
either of pieces of tinned iron (derived from kerosene tins) roughly twisted 
into a conical or flattened tube, or of large crabs 1 daws. The dapper, in 
either case, is generally the tip of a similar claw. These floats are attached 
to drift nets, the position of which they indicate to the fishermen at night. 
3. Spring Castanet Malay, Kampong Jalor, Jalor (Fig. 1). 
A light rod of bamboo, split into two slender, springy arms, which are 
united below. On the end of each is fixed a large shell (genus Ampullaria\ the 
spring of the supporting arms keeping the shells pressed against one another. A 
light stick or plectrum is passed rapidly to and fro between the shells, 
causing them to strike together very rapidly. This instrument is used by 
Malay children to imitate the sound made by the rice-swamp frogs {Rana limno- 
charis), a very good simulation being produced, A similar instrument is often 
improvised by peasants in Bosnia and elsewhere, by holding two wooden 
spoons together, with their bowls back to back, and “rapidly passing the handle 
of a third backwards and forwards between the bowls. 
4. Bamboo Gong . Malay name, kalah . Malay and Siamese. Kampong 
Jalor (Fig. 2). 
Fig 2, Scale = c, 
A section of stout bamboo, eighteen and a half inches long, closed by a 
node at each end. Along one side runs a longitudinal, slit-like opening, twelve 
inches by nine-sixteenths inch, the bamboo is slightly engraved. The wooden 
striker is attached by a cord to a flange projecting at one end. 
c Malays travelling at night often carry one of these bamboo gongs, 
which they strike when uncertain as to the way. The people in the nearest 
village reply. In some districts of the Patau i States the use of the kalah is 
restricted to the nai-ban and kem-nan (heads of tens and hundreds), who 
summon their followers with it in case of fire, robbery or the like. Similar 
gongs are used by the guards on the birds-nest islands of the Taleh Sap^ 
where each sentinel is obliged to strike his gong every hour through the night, 
