Jerat tempurong
This short note by C. A. Gibson-Hill describes the jerat tempurong, a Malay ground trap for catching ground-feeding birds, observed in use by Chinese settlers on Pulau Tioman in September 1954 (p. 172).
Summary
The trap consists of a half coconut shell sunk into the ground as a bait receptacle, with short nooses of nylon fishing gut laid radially around it and anchored by a wooden peg. Gibson-Hill identifies the arrangement as the jerat tempurong and notes that it had not previously been described in the literature, including Winstedt’s Malay Industries (1911) (p. 172). He clarifies the terminological distinction between jerat (nooses on the ground) and rachek (nooses suspended from pegs), and the addition of denak when a tethered decoy bird is employed (p. 173). The note also records a 1941 collection of galliformes and pittas in north Kedah by a collector working for Col. Meinertzhagen and the British Museum of Natural History, whose records were lost in the war (p. 173).