gs 4 feet
above the fruit heads. It swings about slightly in the breeze, and
probably is some protection against the birds. I believe it the least
effective of the various things devised by the Igorot to protect his
rice from the multitudes of ti-lin' -- the small, brown ricebird[25]
found broadly over the Archipelago.

The most picturesque of these wind-tossed bird scarers is the
ki'-lao. The ki'-lao is a basket-work figure swung from a pole and is
usually the shape and size of the distended wings of a large gull,
though it is also made in other shapes, as that of man, the lizard,
etc. The pole is about 20 feet high, and is stuck in the earth at such
an angle that the swinging figure attached by a line at the top of the
pole hangs well over the sementera and about 3 or 4 feet above the
grain (see Pl. LXVII). The bird-like ki'-lao is hung by its middle,
at what would be the neck of the bird, and it soars back and forth,
up and down, in a remarkably lifelike way. There are often a dozen
ki'-lao in a space 4 rods square, and they are certainly effectual,
if they look as bird-like to ti-lin' as they do to man. When seen
a short distance away they appear exactly like a flock of restless
gulls turning and dipping in some harbor.

FIGURE 4

Fig. 4. -- Bird scarer in rice field.

The water-power bird scarers are ingenious. Across a shallow,
running rapids in the river or canal a line, called "pi-chug'," is
stretched, fastened at one end to a yielding pole, and at the other to
a rigid pole. A bowed piece of wood about 15 inches long and 3 inches
wide, called "pit-ug'," is suspended by a line at each end from the
horizontal cord. This pit-ug' is suspended in the rapids, by which it
is carried quickly downstream as far as the elasticity of the yielding
pole and the pi-chug' will allow, then it snaps suddenly back upstream
and is ready to be carried down and repeat the jerk on the relaxing
pole. A system of cords passes high in the air from the jerking pole at
the stream to other slender, jerked poles among the sementeras. From
these poles a low jerking line runs over the sementeras, over which
are stretched at right angles parallel cords within a few feet of the
fruit heads. These parallel cords are also jerked, and their movement,
together with that of the leaves depending from them, is sufficient
to keep the birds away. One such machine may send its shock a quarter
of a mile and trouble the birds over an area half an a