rne
part.

Early in the morning, Alexis--still curious about the arenga-trees--and
desirous of ascertaining to what genus of palms they belonged--strayed
off among them, in hopes of procuring a flower. The others remained by
the hut, preparing breakfast.

Alexis saw none of the trees in flower, their great spathes being yet
unfolded; but, toping to find some one more forward than the rest, he
kept on for a considerable distance through the forest.

As he was walking leisurely along, his eyes at intervals turned upward
to the fronds of the palms, he saw that one of the trunks directly in
front of him was in motion. He stopped and listened. He heard a sound
as of something in the act of being rent, just as if some one was
plucking leaves from the trees. The sound proceeded from the one that
was in motion; but it was only its trunk that he saw; and whatever was
causing the noise and the movement appeared to be up among the great
fronds at its crown.

Alexis regretted that he had left his gun behind him. He had no other
weapon with him but his knife. Not that he was afraid: for the animal
could not be an elephant in the top of a palm-tree, nor a rhinoceros;
and these were the only quadrupeds that need be greatly dreaded in a
Bornean forest: since the royal tiger, though common enough both in Java
and Sumatra, is not an inhabitant of Borneo.

It was not fear that caused him to regret having left his gun behind
him; but simply that he should lose the chance of shooting some animal--
perhaps a rare one. That it was a large one he could tell by the
movement of the tree: since no squirrel or small quadruped could have
caused the stout trunk of the palm to vibrate in such a violent manner.

I need not say how the regret of the young hunter was increased, when he
approached the tree, and looking up, saw what the animal really was--a
bear, and that bear the true _ursus malayanus_! Yes, there was he, with
his black body, yellowish muzzle, and white half-moon upon his breast--
busy gorging himself upon the tender leaflets of the arenga--whose white
fragments, constantly dropping from his jaws, strewed the ground at the
bottom of the tree.

Alexis now remembered that this was a well-known habit of the Malayan
bear--whose favourite food is the "cabbage" of palm-trees, and who often
extends his depredations to the cocoa plantations, destroying hundreds
of trees before he can be detected and destroyed himself. Of course