plantation. Her parents, however, persuaded her to stay at home; first until the
trees were felled, then until the fallen timber had been burnt off, then till the rice
had been planted, and then again till it was cut. When, however, they attempted
to put her off yet once more, until the rice should be trodden out, she could bear
it no longer, and taking off her bracelets and earrings, which she left behind the
door, and placing her little sister in the swinging-cot, she changed herself into a
ground-dove and flew away to the clearing. [She retained her necklace, however,
and this accounts for the speckled marks on this dove’s neck.] On arriving at the
spot where her parents were engaged at work, she alighted on a dead tree stump
(changgong), and called out thrice to her mother, ‘Mother, mother, I have left
my earrings and bracelets behind the door, and have put my little sister in the
swing.’ Her mother, amazed at these words, hastened home, and found her
daughter gone. She then returned to the bird, which repeated the same words as
before, this time, however, concluding with the coo of a dove. In vain the
distressed parents endeavoured to recapture her, by cutting down the tree on
which she had perched; before they had done so she flew to another, and after
following her from tree to tree for several miles they were obliged to desist, and
she was never recaptured.”^36
The following notes on birds are taken from a reprint^37 of “Museum Notes” by
Mr. L. Wray, jun., the official curator of the Perak Museum. Mr. Wray says:—
“The Weaver-bird, which makes the long hanging bottle-shaped nests
occasionally seen hanging from the branches of a low tree, is said to use a
golden needle in the work; and it is affirmed that if the nest is carefully picked to
pieces, without breaking any part of it, the needle will be found; but if it is pulled
ruthlessly apart, or if even a single piece of the grass of which it is made is
broken in unravelling it, the golden needle will disappear. The makers of these
curious and beautiful nests are said to always choose trees that are infested with
red ants or wasps, or which grow in impassable swamps.”
The Weaver-bird (Ploceus Baya, Blyth) is called (in Selangor) Burong Tĕmpua
or Chiak Raya. It is said to use only the long jungle grass called lalang for
making its nest, which latter is called buah rabun, and is used by the Malays for
polishing sheaths and scabbards. When an infant keeps crying, one of the parents
takes the weaver-bird’s nest, reduces it to ashes, and fumigates the child by
thrice moving it round in a circle over the smoke. Whilst doing so, the parent