WILD LIFE IN THE JUNGLE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4907, 25 November 1925, Page 4

WILD LIFE IN THE JUNGLE

TREE-CEIMBING FISH. STRANGE HAPPENINGS IN MALAY. Topsy-Turvydom is the ruling spirit in. the Malay Archipelago. In the Javanese jungle for instance, the earthwords sing; they come out of the ground and .whistle. Not so very, far away are the Cocos Islands, where the crabs eat the coconuts and the fish eat the cor,al; rats, live on the tops of tall trees, and wells have both fresh and salt water! At least, so says. Mr C.arveth Wells in “Six Years in the Malay Jungle.’’ Mr Wells is a happy adventurer who came to London looking for trouble. He' called' upon Lord Halsbury, the then Lord Chancellor, one morning. “Well, young man,” said-Lord Halsbury, “whati can I do for you?” ‘Tnr.afraid you will think it awful cheek. - But I wondered if you would recommend me to the Crown Agents for a job,” replied Mr Wells. "Why,” responded the Lord Chancellor, “but I’m afraid I- don’t know you.” “Oh ! But I knew your brother in Torquay,” suggested Mr’Wells. “You know I u?.ed to buy apples from him.’’ Mr Wells was on his way .to the jungle in a fortnight, and - among other wonders he observed were forty different kinds of monkeys, butterflies, and moths measuring a foot across, and snakes 30 feet long. Snakes, says Mr Wells, red and yel-low-banded ones, big Bft fellows and frightfully pois.onoup, can be seen sporting in the water approaching Penang.

There is this fish s.tory. “I saw it come out of a hole in the ground, hop, skip, and jump, and walk up to a tree,” he remarks, “climb up, and deliberately wink its eye at me.” And then that same fish seemed to feel, the heat, because, as Mr Wells, recounts, it later climbed down, walked leisurely over to a pond, stood on the edge, dipped up some water in its fin, and threw it over its head. “It was. a Funny Fish,’ he adds. There is also a story of a hospital nurse who, because of the heat, dragged 'her bed to the verandah. “Suddenly she awakened to hear something scratching on the outside of the house, and, as sne watched the window, there suddenly appeared the huge head of a tiger. The girl did not scream, but, snatching up her pillow, she threw it at him and hit him square in the face. “The tiger caught the pillow in his paws, and, with a snarK began to eat it. But the pillow was full of feath, ere, which went down his throat, and he was almost tickled to death. Spluttering and sneezing he fell out of the window backwards and began clawing at his mouth to get rid of the feathers, while the girl rushed to the back of the house' and fetched a watchman, who killed him.”