about thirty-two feet long, ten feet 
longer than mine. 
Ten years after I returned to Samar 
to find that I could buy many pythons 
up to thirty feet in length at the rate 
of about fifty cents a foot. The 
Filipino hunters had little difficulty in 
locating and catching specimens when¬ 
ever they wished. Once the reptile 
was forced into a coil, the hunters had 
no difficulty in slipping him into a 
large bag. 
1 have never seen a python attack 
a man, although I have seen many in 
the jungle. This reptile is a coward 
escaping with lightning speed. 
Some time after the python incident 
I chanced to be in the interior of 
Samar again. The forest around my 
camp seemed to be alive with horn- 
bill, a bird about the size of a turkey- 
hen. They appeared to sense the 
presence of a gun. I heard a number 
above me in the branches of dense 
foliage. I fired into a clump of shaking 
leaves, hoping to hit a bird. Think of 
my astonishment when through the 
cracking branches fell an eagle weigh¬ 
ing fully seventy-five pounds. The 
bird was different from any I had ever 
seen. I decided to save the claws; I 
was too far into the interior to carry 
out the entire carcass. 
When I returned to my station I 
was to receive another surprise. An 
English naturalist had come to Samar 
to search for a specimen of a species 
tound only in Samar island. After 
having examined the claws, he in¬ 
formed me that if I had brought in the 
entire carcass he would have been 
pleased to reward me with two thou¬ 
sand English pounds, the price his 
patron had offered, there being only 
one specimen preserved and that was 
m the Museum of Berlin. 
In the tropics there is little hunting 
as . the term is understood in the 
United States. Hunting may be better 
described as killing game driven be¬ 
fore the guns. Long tramps in the 
tropic sun would kill the average 
white man; it is only the trained 
naturalist who ever gets an oppor¬ 
tunity for real sport, hunting with 
the wildmen and peasants. 
The nearest approach to hunting is 
found m the rice fields surrounding 
Manila. During the spring months 
the Manchurian snipe invade the low¬ 
lands. It is not a difficult feat to bag 
one hundred in a single morning. Of 
course, the. hunter must be provided 
with a native boy retriever who, al¬ 
most. naked, wades into the flooded 
paddies, the hunter keeping to the 
paths between. 
The tamarao is an animal resembling 
the water-buffalo but only one-half its 
Page 569 
size, found in no other place in the 
world except Mindoro. It is a brush 
animal whose pursuit is both danger¬ 
ous and exciting. Experienced hunters 
seldom if ever pursue the tamarao into 
the jungle, for it has an ugly habit 
of charging from its hiding. Those 
Americans who have pursued the 
treacherous little beast into its hiding 
have been injured or killed. It is 
safer to kill the tamarao from ambush 
while he feeds in the open. 
I have heard many Americans tell 
of the “royal sport” of hunting the 
wild water buffalo in the Philippines, 
commonly called carabao. When I 
hear such stories I can hardly suppress 
a smile. The wild buffalo is the 
humble carabao strayed into the moun¬ 
tains. 
Several years ago a Filipino poli¬ 
tician invited a gullible American of 
high official rank to join in a wild 
buffalo hunt. Now the truth of the 
matter was that the part of the Philip¬ 
pines chosen for the hunt contained 
no unclaimed animals. 
The grand day came. The party 
rode into the interior about ten miles 
where strong, high shooting boxes had 
been erected in a dry river about two 
miles wide. Four or five hundred 
peasants were sent to drive the “wild” 
animals out of the jungle into the dry 
river past the hunters. More than a 
dozen were killed and their heads 
taken to be mounted as trophies. Two 
months after this famous hunt I vis¬ 
ited, in an official capacity, the town 
where lived the owners of the animals 
that had been slaughtered. They 
came to see me to enter complaints 
to recover from the government, the 
value of the animals killed by the 
visitors. 
Three years after the hunt I saw 
some of its trophies in a New York 
club. I was tempted to point out to 
admirers the rope marks on the horns 
of the old animal that had, no doubt, 
spent the better part of its life draw¬ 
ing a plow through a ricepaddy. 
On the headwaters of the Cayagan 
T found a number of unclaimed buf¬ 
faloes. They had been free many 
years. I was invited to participate in 
a killing. My host took with our 
equipment a female caribao and her 
calf. After we had made camp, he 
tied the female animal in a clump of 
trees and the calf in another about 
five hundred yards away. We “hunt¬ 
ers” took stations in trees. The wild 
animals, hearing the lowing of the 
female and the cry of the calf, left 
their hiding in the nearby jungle to 
investigate. Whenever a jungle animal 
came within range the hunters fired. 
M e were able to bring down three be¬ 
fore night. L pon returning to camp. 
we found one of our number missing. 
A guide sent out to bring him in re¬ 
ported him treed by a wounded animal. 
He had exhausted his ammunition; he 
had to remain in the tree until morn¬ 
ing, when the sentinel at the foot of 
the tree was dispatched by a shot 
from a long-range rifle. 
On the great plains of the island of 
Negros the undomesticated buffaloes 
were killed in a manner no less inter¬ 
esting although unsportsmanlike. The 
hunter reclined in a hammock swung 
beneath a tame buffalo guided to 
where the wild animals were feeding. 
When the wild animal approached to 
fight the intruder, the man reached 
out from beneath the tame animal 
with a razor-like machet to hamstring 
the attacker. From a reading this 
would appear dangerous, while, when 
watched from a distance, it is really a 
commonplace. The man riding in the 
hammock is in little danger. Should 
he be thrown from his hammock he 
would only let go his guiding line and 
avoid the hoofs of the fighting animals, 
too much engaged in watching or fight¬ 
ing to pursue a man. 
By George Ballard Bowers. 
Dear Forest and Stream : 
JUST to show you that I have not 
forgotten how to handle a line in 
the surf, I am enclosing a picture that 
will explain itself. 
The victim was a shark, taken in the 
Atlantic surf near Palm Beach, Flor¬ 
ida. Time, one hour and ten minutes. 
Weight, three hundred and one pounds. 
Length, eight feet two inches. Over 
a hundred persons witnessed this battle. 
Tackle: Light surf rod, tip six ft. 
long eight ounces, one guide and tip 
top. Spring butt. Meisselbach surf 
reel. Line No. 21 thread (Ashaway 
Line and Twine Co.). Regular slip 
sinker rig and No. 6-0 hook. 
This is a record for this section for 
