Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra85861922roya).pdf/272

 Notes.

 The Malayan Badger.

Dr. W. Docters van Leeuwen, Director of the Botanical Gardens, Buitenzorg contributes the following interesting notes on the Malayan Badger in Java:—

Buitenzorg, 20th May, 1921.

"With much interest I have read your article on the occurrence of the Malayan Badger in Borneo (Journ. Str. Br. Roy. Asiat. Soc. No. 83, 1921, pp. 112-116). This animal is very common in Java and I have seen it or smelt it on every mountain which I have visited. The lowest elevation at which I have seen this animal was 1000 feet on Mount Moeria in Java-central. The last time I saw it on Mount Pangerango, near Buitenzorg, was from an elevation of 4000 feet up to the summit, about 11,000 feet. There it is also common and very tame; in the vicinity of my mountain cabin it seeks the earthworms and insects under the thick moss-cover of the old crater valley. In the neighbourhood of our mountain laboratory at Tjibodas it is also very frequent and more than once we were awakened by the stink of this animal walking under our sleeping room.

"It will interest you perhaps that in this forest there is a kind of fern, which has the same smell as the badger though not so strong, and which is named by the natives the "pakoe sigoeng"; its scientific name is Didymochleena lunulata Desv.

"I have had some accidents meeting this animal but never have I felt any ill effect from the anal fluid though it is far from agreeable to be in contact with it. In some parts of Java, especially in the old sultanates it is said that a very weakened solution of the fluid is used as a perfume."

Buitenzorg, 2nd June, 1921.

"In the neighbourhood of Mount Goentoer near Garoet I had once built a small bamboo cabin, with walls of dried grass and about every evening a badger came and looked in one of my open rooms and every night as he walked near the cabin we were awakened by the smell. This stench he bears too, when not irritated, in his hairs, and also the path followed by this animal in the forest is recognisible [sic] by the stink. In the forest of Mount Pangerango I have seen the badger often in the first hours of the afternoon, but it is really a night-animal."