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Bill has given our small siamang to Tom Davis, but it was quickly replaced by a lovely brown-furred, almost honey-colored gibbon, with a dark-brown face, almost black, surrounded by a halo of white fur. This is the first specimen we have had of this gibbon, although it is rather widely distributed throughout Sumatra.

July 10 - 

Bill had a good night and fells better. He had one shock when a message from the hotel was sent over, saying that Harold Coolidge [[strikethrough]] g [[/strikethrough]]had been taken to the hospital in Medan, and that Mrs. C wanted us to phone her immediately. Bill dhashed over to telephone, but the news was not so bad about Harold: It was simply a question of the altitude of Brastagi being bad for his heart, so he was trying the hospital in Medan instead. What he wanted was to know if we would take home the gibbons which his associate, Carpenter, had collected in Siam.

We bought another python today, - not a remarkable one, except for the way it was delivered. It came in an open, round shallow basket, on the back of a bicycle. Its body was neatly coiled round and rund inside, and its head, tied with a piece of string to the edge of the basket, looked out over the edge. It seemed perfectly calm and contented with this method of transportation. One came in the other day tied with a dozen strands of rattan to a bamboo pole. Jennier started to untie it, to be sure it was a good specimen before he bought it, and of course assumed that the courageous captor of the reptile would give him a hand. Instead, the moment the snake was free, everyone ran a mile away, leaving Jennier with a ten-foot python, holding the neck in his hand so he would not be bitten, but trying to keep the python from coiling around him. As he said, "We just rolled around the grass together until I got it into a bag. [[strikethrough]] Then [[/strikethrough]] It had such bad sores on it that I didn't buy it after all."

July 11 - Sunday

A message came early this morning that a big tiger had been caught in a trap near Dolok Merangir, and we could come and get it. The last time Jennier and Davis went after a tiger it was one that had been caught in a steel trap and its leg was broken. So Bill went dashing over to the Hotel to telephone. Unfortunately this one was also in a steel trap, so we turned it down. Someone will buy it for the skin. Later another message came, this time direct from Dolok Merangir, that there was a tiger - did we want it? We still did not. In the late afternoon, while the Ingles of Dolok Merangir were here, came a third message. This time it was a small tiger caught in a grogol. Upon investigation, a grogol seemed to be a box trap, and as we were sure that the big tiger had already been shot, we thought it better to send Jennier and Davis to look at this one. Armed with a small cage, a gunny sack, and a couple of flashlights, they started out shortly before dusk. At eight-thirty they were back, having driven fifty kms, and walked about five, only to find that they were chasing the same old tiger. Rumors spread as fast in this country as anywhere else, only this was an unusual way to vary the tale, with the tiger growing small instead of bigger every time the tale was told.