: Trapping wild animals in Malay jungles by Mayer Charles - Animal behavior; Trapping; Hunting Malay Archipelago

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"I looked up just as a black leopard sprang at us. Ali's spear whizzed by my head, hitting the animal in the side. I fired, catching him in mid-air squarely in the chest with an explosive bullet."

"Since the monkey cannot pull his hand out of the bottle while it is doubled up and he hasn't sense enough to let go, he sticks there until the hunter comes along."

"I climbed to the platform and looked down into the trap. There were sixty elephants."

"I felt myself spinning so rapidly that the elephant, my men and the stall were all a blur; and I came up against the wall with a thud. Fortunately, there was a gutter running along the wall, and I dropped into it just as the elephant lunged forward at me."

"We began to prod the rhinoceros..... He put his head against the wall and rooted; the wall toppled over and he lurched out of the pit and into the cage."

"A huge paw shot out and grabbed my ankle. I was jerked off the ground, and, as I fell, my hands caught the limb of a tree..... The brute pulled. I felt myself growing dizzy..... Then Omar grabbed a club and pounded the Orang's arm."

"Then three of us armed with krises took positions so that we should be above the seladang when he charged, and we lowered the sack. He snorted and drew back."

Trapping Wild Animals in Malay Jungles

CIRCUS DAYS

It as the lure of the circus--the tug that every boy feels when a show comes to town--that started me on my career as a collector of wild animals. I use the word collector rather than hunter, because hunting gives the idea of killing and, in my business, a dead animal is no animal at all. In fact, the mere hunting of the animals was simply the beginning of my work, and the task of capturing them uninjured was far more thrilling than standing at a distance and pulling a trigger. And then, when animals were safely in the net or stockade, came the job of taking them back through the jungle to the port where they could be sold. It was often a case of continuous performance until I stood on the dock and saw the boats steam away with the cages aboard. And I wasn't too sure of the success of my expedition even then, because the animals I had yanked from the jungle might die before they reached their destination.

I was nearly seventeen when Sells Brothers' Circus came to Binghamton, New York, where I was living with my parents. That day I joined some other boys in playing hookey from school, and we earned our passes by carrying water for the animals. It wasn't my first circus, but it was the first time that I had ever worked around the animals and I was fascinated. I didn't miss the big show, but all the rest of the day I was in the menagerie, listening to the yarns of the keepers and doing as much of their work as they would allow. That night, when the circus left town, I stowed away in a wagon.

The next morning, in Elmira, I showed up at the menagerie bright and early. The men laughed when they saw me. I had expected them to be surprised and I was afraid that they might send me away, but I found out later that it was quite an ordinary thing for boys to run away from home and join the circus. And the men didn't mind because the boys were always glad to do their work for them. I worked hard and, in return, the men saw that I had something to eat. That night I stowed away again in the wagon.

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