the * wigwam ’ of leafy branches which he has erected in
order to conceal himself from sight. The door or entrance
to these ‘ wigwams ’ is partially closed by a screen
of palm (Nipa fruticans) leaves. This is elevated a little
to allow the pigeons to enter, after which it is allowed to
fall, portcullis-like, entirely, so as to close the entrance;
and the bird is then easily secured. Above the entrance
two holes are made, so that the hunter can look out
without being seen. These huts are formed of a few
poles or sticks, rudely thatched with twigs and palm-
leaves, and vary from four to six feet in height.
“ This pigeon is migratory, and arrives in Labuan and
on the opposite Bornean coast with the change of the
monsoon, about April. Many hundreds are then caught
by means of this ‘ dakut,’ or ‘ bamboo call,’ and are
offered for sale by their captors for a cent or two each.
They are also kept by the natives as domestic pets, along
with young hornbills, the £ Mino ’ bird or ‘ Grackle,’ a
small species of paroquet, and Java sparrows.”
At this season little huts are built in the forest, and
the hunter, ensconced within, blows his call, and they
will actually run inside the hut, where they are caught.
The Kadyans and their Murut neighbours collect a good
deal of gutta and caoutchouc in the surrounding forests,
which is afterwards manufactured into lumps or balls,
and taken over to Labuan for sale. The gutta is obtained
from four or five kinds of large forest trees,
belonging to the genus isonandra, by felling the trees
and girdling or ringing their bark at intervals of every
two feet, the milky juice or sap being caught in vessels
fashioned of leaves or cocoa-nut shells. The crude sap
is hardened into slabs or bricks by boiling, and is generally
adulterated with twenty per cent, of scraped bark—
indeed, the Chinese traders who purchase the gutta from
the collectors, would refuse the pure article in favour of
that adulterated with bark, and to which its red colour
is mainly due.
Caoutchouc or rubber is in the N.W. districts of
Borneo the produce of three species of climbing plants,
known to the natives as “ Manoongan,” * ‘ Manoongan
putih,” and “ Manoongan manga.” Their stems are fifty
to one hundred feet in length, and rarely more than six
inches in diameter, the bark corrugated, and of a grey
or reddish-brown colour; leaves oblong, and of a glossy
green colour; the flowers are borne in axillary clusters,
and are succeeded by yellow fruits, the size of an orange,
and containing seeds as large as beans, each enclosed in
a section of apricot-coloured fruit. These fruits are of a
delicious flavour, and are highly valued by the natives.
Here, again, the stems are cut down to facilitate the
collection of the creamy sap, which is afterwards coagulated
into rough balls by the addition of nipa salt.
It is most deplorable to see the fallen gutta trees lying
about in all directions in the forest, and the rubber-yielding
willughbeias are also gradually, but none the less
surely, being exterminated by the collectors here in
Borneo, as, indeed, throughout the other islands and
on the Peninsula, where they also abound.
It was formerly thought that gutta was the produce of
one particular species of tree—Isonandra gutta—but that
from the Lawas district is formed of the mixed sap of at
least five species, the juice of ficus and one or two species
of artocarpese being not unfrequently used in addition as
adulterants. The Bornean “ gutta soosoo,” or rubber,
again, is the mixed sap of three species of willughbeias,
and here, again, the milk of two or three other plants is
added surreptitiously to augment the quantity collected.
The gutta trees are a long time in attaining to maturity,