“The call is formed of two pieces of bamboo, a slender tube, a short piece 3″—4″ in diameter, and a connecting piece of wood. In the short piece is a hole similar to the embouchure of a flute; and the lower end of the blow-tube is fitted to this in such a manner that, on blowing, a soft, low, flute-like ‘cooing’ is easily producible; and this can be readily modulated so as to be heard either at a long distance or near at hand. This instrument is figured in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1879, Part II., p. 346. The native, who has taken up his position in the forest or jungle where these little birds are found, blows very softly at first; but if there be no answering call from the birds he blows louder and louder, thus increasing the radius of sound. If there really be any pigeons of this kind within hearing, they are sure to answer; and then the hunter blows softer and softer until they are enticed into 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 artocarpeæ 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, and are not easy to propagate, except by seeds. The willughbeias, on the other hand, grow quickly, and may be easily and rapidly increased by vegetative as well as by seminal modes of propagation, hence the latter are more especially deserving of the attention of our Government in India, where they might reasonably be expected to thrive.
No doubt there are yet many thousands of tons of these products existing in Bornean woods, but as the trees are killed by the collectors without a thought of replacement, the supply will recede further and further from the markets, and so prices must of necessity rise as the supply fails, or as the collection of it becomes more laborious.
The demand for caoutchouc from Borneo is a very recent one, yet in many districts the supply is practically exhausted. In Assam, Java, and also in Australia, rubber is supplied by Ficus elastica, which is cultivated for the purpose. There are many milk-yielding species of ficus in the Bornean forests which might possibly afford a supply in remunerative quantities as the result of careful experiments. The Malayan representatives of the bread-fruit family also deserve examination, as excellent rubber is yielded by Castilloa elastica, a South-American plant of this order.