I afterwards shot two adult females and two young ones of different
ages, all of which I preserved. One of the females, with several young
ones, was feeding on a Durian tree with unripe fruit; and as soon as she
saw us she began breaking off branches and the great spiny fruits
with every appearance of rage, causing such a shower of missiles as
effectually kept us from approaching too near the tree. This habit of
throwing down branches when irritated has been doubted, but I have, as
here narrated, observed it myself on at least three separate occasions.
It was however always the female Mias who behaved in this way, and
it may be that the male, trusting more to his great strength and his
powerful canine teeth, is not afraid of any other animal, and does not
want to drive them away, while the parental instinct of the female leads
her to adopt this mode of defending herself and her young ones.
In preparing the skins and skeletons of these animals, I was much
troubled by the Dyak dogs, which, being always kept in a state of
semi-starvation, are ravenous for animal food. I had a great iron pan,
in which I boiled the bones to make skeletons, and at night I covered
this over with boards, and put heavy stones upon it; but the dogs
managed to remove these and carried away the greater part of one of my
specimens. On another occasion they gnawed away a good deal of the upper
leather of my strong boots, and even ate a piece of my mosquito-curtain,
where some lamp-oil had been spilt over it some weeks before.
On our return down the stream, we had the fortune to fall in with a
very old male Mias, feeding on some low trees growing in the water. The
country was flooded for a long distance, but so full of trees and stumps
that the laden boat could not be got in among them, and if it could have
been we should only have frightened the Mias away. I therefore got into
the water, which was nearly up to my waist, and waded on until I was
near enough for a shot. The difficulty then was to load my gun again,
for I was so deep in the water that I could not hold the gun sloping
enough to pour the powder in. I therefore had to search for a shallow
place, and after several shots under these trying circumstances, I was
delighted to see the monstrous animal roll over into the water. I now
towed him after me to the stream, but the Malays objected to having the
animal put into the boat, and he was so heavy that I could not do it
without their help. I looked about for a place to skin him, but not a
bit of dry ground was to be seen, until at last I found a clump of two
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