They have been successful in their hunting and have nearly sixty codies, or twelve hundred of the skins, though they have been in the interior only since last May. The skins, well preserved in arsenic, are done up in parcels. There is a small fortune in the proceeds of their season’s hunting and they are most happy at their success, though they of course do not boast of it. It is not the Chinaman’s way to wax exuberant over anything. Win or lose, his face never changes expression.
In the course of the evening our visitors tell us in perfect Malay—they speak only a word or two of English—of the manner of hunting their beautiful quarry. The habits of the birds are most interesting. They also tell us something which is news to us. We had supposed that the restrictions placed upon the importation of the skins into America were due to the possibility of the species becoming extinct, but the hunters tell us that this is not the case. They say that only the male birds in full plumage are taken and that the bird never attains his fullest plumage until after the second bird-mating season. This being the case, it would seem that there is no danger of extinction, and the Chinese seemed to think that the ruling was unjust.
The method of hunting the birds is odd and requires much patience. When the locality they frequent is located, search is made for the dancing-tree. This is usually an immense bare-limbed tree that towers above the surrounding jungle. When such a tree is found it is watched for several mornings to see if the birds come to it, and if this is the case, a blind is constructed well up in its branches where the hunters can hide from the sight of the birds but are within easy bow-shot of them. Two bowmen will ascend to this masking shelter, two or three hours before dawn, and lie in wait for the birds that they know will come with the first rays of the rising sun.
The trees surrounding the large one fill with female birds, come to witness the dancing of the males who strut and dance on the bare branches of the large tree. The hunters lie in wait in their blind until the tree is literally filled with the gorgeous male birds.
The birds become so engrossed in their strutting and vain showing-off to the females that the hunters are able to shoot them down one by one with the blunt arrows used for this purpose. The large round ends of the arrows merely stun the birds, which fall to the ground and are picked up by men below.