The “chuck, chuck” of the goat-sucker (Caprimulgus macrurus) is one of the most familiar sounds during moonlight nights. At daybreak the chatter of the Java sparrows assures one of its being high time to rise. Cuming’s mound bird (Megapodius Cumingi) is found in Labuan, but is more common on the islets of Kuraman, where its nests are met with in mounds of earth, three to four feet in height, and twelve feet in circumference.
Even the Nicobar pigeon visits this island; and a solitary hoopoo was shot there during my visit. Two species of great beaked hornbills inhabit the forest; and there are three or four species of swallows. One of the prettiest of all the small birds is a long-tailed green and brown fly-catcher, which might easily be mistaken for a swallow, so swift and graceful is its flight. A large red kingfisher (Halcyon caromanda), found here, builds its nest in a peculiar manner, as described by Mr. Sharpe, in Proc. Zool. Soc., 1879, part ii., p. 331:—
“The nest is said to be pendulous, and invariably to be accompanied in the same mass by a bee, which is peculiarly vicious, so that the nest can only be robbed after destroying the bees.”
The interior of the island is flat and marshy; and here the soil being deep and alluvial, it is well adapted for rice; and the wet patches beside the streams suit the sago palm well. In the patches of low jungle beside the roads three or four species of pitcher plants abound, rooting into the wet, sandy peat earth, and climbing up the shrubby undergrowth in the most luxuriant and graceful manner. These nepenthes stems are wonderfully tough, and are used as withes, and as a substitute for rattan cane in tying fence timbers together. More rarely they are used in basket-work. The kinds most common in Labuan are N. gracilis, several varieties, N. nivea, and N. ampullaria. There are five or six species of terrestrial orchids; and from trees on Dr. Ley’s estate plants of the new genus astrostruma (A. spartiodes, Benth.) were gathered for the first time.
Alligators infest the streams, and shallow sea, near the town of Victoria; and now and then a native is carried off. One of these large brutes actually tried to carry off a pony one night during my stay. Snakes are plentiful. A deadly green snake is common on the Bird Island, just off the mouth of the harbour, and great brown rock snakes abound. One night a Kling man brought a black snake, six feet long, tied to a stick, which he said he had caught up a cocoa-nut tree, and added that it had just swallowed a bird. It was purchased; and in the morning, when it was being skinned, the “boy” came to say that it had young ones inside it. This we did not believe; and, on going to see it, we found that the “young one” was a snake, two feet long, of another species, very common in the island, which had been swallowed head foremost, as usual, and was in part digested. The large snake was so fat, that hunger could not have prompted it to swallow a smaller brother; and so I more than suspect that Malaysia can now boast of a snake-eating snake, as well as British India, whence one of these cannibals, the ophiophagus, was introduced to the Zoological Gardens a few years ago.
A large boa, ten to twenty feet long, and as thick as one’s arm, is common in the jungle, and often commits depredations amongst badly-housed poultry, as also does the iguana. A singular sluggishness characterised all the snakes I saw; and as many of those said to be deadly by the natives rest on the trees, rather than on the ground, this may account for the extreme rarity of death from snake-bites in this part of the East. A slender green species, nearly six feet in length, infests the fig-trees when in fruit; and, twisting its tail around a branch, it coils itself up ready to spring at any bird unwary enough to venture sufficiently close. One of these I saw shot; and it had a double row of hooked fangs in its wide set jaws, admirably adapted to hold anything once within its grasp.
Perhaps the most lovely and interesting of all, however, are the sun-birds, which are here in the East the representatives of the true humming-birds of the Western tropics. “They are ethereal, gay, and sprightly in their movements, flitting briskly from flower to flower, and assuming a thousand lovely and agreeable attitudes. As the sunbeams glitter on their bodies, they sparkle like so many precious stones, and exhibit at every turn a variety of bright and evanescent hues. As they hover around the honey-laden blossoms, they vibrate their tiny pinions so rapidly, as to cause a slight whirring sound, but not so loud as the humming noise produced by the true humming birds. Occasionally they may be seen clinging by their feet and tail busily engaged in rifling the blossoms of the trees. I well remember a certain dark-leaved tree with scarlet flowers, that especially courted the attention of the sun-birds; and about its blossoms they continually darted with eager and vivacious movements. With this tree they seemed particularly delighted, clinging to the slender twigs, and coquetting with the flowers, thrusting in their slender curved beaks, and probing with their brush-like tongues for insects and nectar, hanging suspended by their feet, throwing back their little glossy heads, chasing each other on giddy wing, and flirting and twittering, the gayest of the gay. Some were emerald-green, some vivid violet, and others yellow, with a crimson wing.”
Sir Jas. Emerson Tennent describes them as being common in Ceylon, where they frequent the gardens, and rifle the blossoms of the passifloras, and other flowers; at other times searching for small insects and spiders, and again pluming themselves, and warbling their pleasing songs on the pomegranate-trees. “If two happened to come to the same flower—and from their numbers this has often occurred—a battle always ensued, which ended in the vanquished bird retreating from the spot with shrill piping cries, while the conqueror would take up his position upon a flower or stem, and swinging his little body to and fro, till his coat of burnished steel gleamed and glistened in the sun, pour out his song of triumph.” The rich plumage of the dainty little male birds is only seen during the breeding season, after which they moult, and are as unattractive as their mates. Two tiny eggs are laid in a wee nest, which is suspended from a twig, or sometimes the stout web of a large spider is made to bear the little shelter for eggs and young.
The spiders in the jungle, and old buildings of the East, are numerous; and some are of an alarming size, but of beautiful colours. One large, black, yellow-spotted species measures six or eight inches across its extended legs, and its web is held in position by grey lines, almost as stout as fine sewing-cotton, and strong enough to pull one’s hat off. It is a very disagreeable sensation to feel them across one’s face, as often happens in a little used jungle-path. Ants are particularly plentiful; and the white termites throw up mounds of red earth, five or six feet in height, and often do much damage by burrowing into the piles of houses, and other buildings. The species of ants vary much in size. One is a tiny red fellow, but little larger than a cheese-mite, and scarcely visible; others are black, their bodies being an inch in length. Some species bite very sharp if disturbed, as I found to my cost, when scrambling about over the branches of trees after orchids, and other plants. There is one species of nepenthes (N. bicalcarata), having large red urns, the stalks of which are invariably perforated by a species of ant; and I found a flowering shrub on the Tawaran river, the stems of which were swollen and hollow just below the flower-heads, this being due to the punctures of ants; a remarkably curious gouty-stemmed plant, parasitical on low jungle-trees in Labuan—myrmecodia—actually depends for its existence on the bite of a species of ant. The seed germinates on the bark of the foster-tree; and when the seedling has attained a certain height, the growth ceases, and it remains stationary, until the necessary bite is given, when the stem swells out at the base, and leaves and flowers are produced in due course. If not thus punctured, the young plant dies. The gouty or swollen stem is hollow, and forms a refuge for the ants, which in their turn may afford it some needful protection, since they rush out boldly to attack trespassers who disturb the tree on which their fostered-shelter plant grows.
One day, as I emerged from the forest on the western shore of the island, I came across a young Kadyan engaged in making salt. The process, as carried out by him, was very simple. A heap of drift wood is collected, and of this a fire is made, so as to secure a good supply of ashes. The ashes are placed in a small tub, and sea-water is filtered through them, so as to catch up whatever salt they contain. It now remains for the water to be evaporated, so as to leave the salt. To this end evaporating-pans, or rather receptacles, are neatly made from the sheaths of the nebong palm, fastened into shape by slender wooden skewers. Two logs are then laid parallel to each other, and a foot or fifteen inches apart, and over these the pans are placed close together, so as to form a rude kind of flue, in the which a fire of light brushwood is lighted, and very soon afterwards the salt may be observed falling to the bottom of the evaporators. It was a very hot morning, and the heat in the close forest where I had been exploring was so intense, that I was thankful to reach the coast and feel the delicious breezes which came from the open sea. The beach to the westward of the island is mainly of firm yellow sand, but here and there paved more or less thickly with honey-combed coral rocks and pebbles. The outer edge of the old forest nearest the shore is fringed with tall casuarina trees, here called “Kayu Aru.” The Malays have some legends connected with this tree, and can rarely be induced to cut it down, although the tough light timber is well suited for some particular purposes.