CAMOUFLAGE FOR TIGERS

Evening Star, Issue 19804, 1 March 1928, Page 3

CAMOUFLAGE FOR TIGERS

A NATIVE TOUGH Captain S. W. Kirby, R.E., who, from 19tkJ to J92G, was engaged as head of a colonial survey .section constructing a topographical map of South Johore, at the loot of the Malay Peninsula, read an interesting paper on the country and its inhabitants to the Royal Geographical Society recently. “The best method of securing a tiger in Jobore is to make friends with the manager of a rubber estate when he is suffering from the raids of a maneater. This may be a serious thing for 'him, for,if a coolie is taken while tapping the whole of the tappers will strike, until either the tiger is killed or a large gang of men are employed beating gongs and blowing trumpets during the whole of the tapping period. Thus the manager is only too glad to find anybody who is prepared to sit up for a tiger, and good sport is sure to bo obtained. “Should it be known that a maneater is in the neighborhood, the Malays, who believe that a man is never taken if he is looking in the direction of the animal, wear, when they are tapping, a mask on the backs of their heads, so that the tiger is led to believe, that he is being watched. This is no uncommon trick, the British Navy themselves having employed it by painting a bow wave on the stern of a vessel in mder to confuse German submarines.

“Tiger ami crocodile are treated, as vermin, and rewards are offered for their capture- dead or alive. A live, tiger is worth 125 dollars, and dead seventy-five dollars. The digging of pits is not allowed in certain districts, and infringement of this law is punished by a fine of fifteen dollars. On one occasion a Chinaman was solemnly paid 125 dollars’ reward for a tiger taken alive, less fifteen dollars’ fine for digging the pit in which lie trapped it. The police usually cut a. circular patch out of the shoulder of the skin, in order to prevent a second award being claimed, and it is said that several Chinese shopkeepers have started producing patches to match, and fixing them in position. This is surely the most lucrative branch of invisible mending! “The reward for a crocodile is paid by the length of the skin measured along the hack, and I have seen the whole of a Malay family having a tug of war with a crocodile skin jn the hope of receiving an extended rewW'd.”-