I naturally felt very angry
with my neighbour for not having asked Vic to tell me about this,
as the previous day when out alone I had climbed to the top of this
fence and then jumped down into the creepers below; luckily I had
not then noticed this low part further down.
Many of the Filipinos are very good shots with their blowpipes, and
Vic possessed one. It was about nine feet in length, and possessed a
sight made of a lump of wax at one end. Like the bows of the Negritos,
it was made out of the trunk of a very beautiful fan-palm (LIVISTONA
sp.). Two pieces of the palm-wood are hollowed out and then stuck
together in a wonderfully clever fashion, so that the joins barely
show. Vic was fairly good with it when shooting at birds a short
distance away. His ammunition consisted of round clay pellets, which
he fashioned to the right size by help of a hole in a small tin plate,
which he always carried with him.
Birds were fairly plentiful in these mountain forests, and I was glad
to get one of the interesting racquet-tailed parrots of the genus
PRIONITURUS, that are only found in the Philippines and Celebes. It was
curious that up here amongst the pigmy Negritos I should get a pigmy
hawk. It was by far the smallest hawk I had ever seen, being not much
larger than a sparrow.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103