while dwelling among them. Nor, as far as I know, has any one failed with Waterton's poison. I made a few experiments with some of it, and found that his account of it was literally true.

Death was not instantaneous, but the creature which was wounded seemed to be immediately deprived of all wish to move. On the spot it was wounded, there it remained, its eyes giving no indication of sensitiveness when touched, and its limbs gradually relaxing as if in sleep. Yet the poison which I used had been preserved nearly forty years at Walton Hall, but it had been carefully kept from damp, which injures, even if it does not destroy its powers.

In his essay on the Monkey family, Waterton makes a passing, but valuable remark on the Wourali :

"If you are in want of a tender monkey, a month old or so, to boil for broth or to educate as a pet, your only chance of success is to shoot the poor mother, but not with a fowlingpiece. Nine times out of ten the wounded mother would stay in the clefts of the trees, where she would ultimately perish with her progeny. An arrow, poisoned with Wourali, is your surest weapon.

"Take a good aim, and in a few minutes the monkey will be lying dead at your feet. The Wourali poison totally destroys all tension in the muscles. Now, a gun-shot wound, even though it be mortal, has not such an immediate effect.

"Knowing this to be the case, whenever a monkey was wanted, recourse was had to poisoned arrows. By this precaution, the ill-fated animal's existence was not prolonged under the painful anguish of a deadly wound. The Wourali poison would act as a balmy soporific, and the victim would be dead at your feet in a very short space of time."

The necessity for some such poison is evident from the fact that on account of the exuberant luxuriance of tropical vegetation, a mortally wounded monkey, if only able to traverse a couple of hundred yards, would be hopelessly lost, and whether the body remained wedged among the boughs or

fell to the ground would be a secret only known to the vultures and carrion-feeding insects.

The peculiar "Quake" or basket into which the Wouralimaker puts his materials, is shown on page 463.

Chief among the materials is the Wourali Vine (Strychnos toxifera). This, as its name imports, is allied to the plant which furnishes the well-known strychnine poison.

When full grown, its vine-like stem is about three inches in diameter, covered with a rough greyish bark, like that of the vine. The dark-green leaves are oval in shape, and are set opposite to each other. It is a tolerably common plant in certain places, but it is very local, and among the abundance of herbage is not readily distinguishable. It bears a round fruit, shaped like an apple, and containing seeds imbedded in a very bitter pulp.

The "root of a very bitter taste" is evidently the hyarri, or haiarri, a plant belonging to the genus Lonchocarpus, chiefly used in poisoning fish. Of this plant the following description is given by the Rev. J. H. Bernau, in his Missionary Labours in British Guiana :

"The haiarri is a papilionaceous vine, bearing a small bluish cluster of blossoms, producing a pod about two inches in length, containing some small grey seeds. The root itself is stronger in its effects than the vine, and is always preferred by the Indians. A solid cubic foot of this root will poison an acre of water, even in the rapids. In creeks and standing water, its effects are still more extensive."

When used, the soft yellow roots are pounded with a stone or mallet and steeped in water, which is then thrown into the river. Heaps of the pounded roots are often found on the stones on the river bank, showing that the fish have been lately poisoned. They appear to be stupefied by the poison, and float on the surface, when they are either shot with arrows or simply lifted out by hand.

No injurious effect on the flesh is produced by the poison, which has been conjectured to paralyse the gills, and so to

kill the fish, or at least to render it senseless, by asphyxiation. Perhaps the paralysing effect of the Wourali may be due to the haiarri juice.

In Mr. C. B. Brown's work on Guiana, there is an interesting account of this mode of fish killing :

:

"I set out at an early hour one morning, with Ben, Eruma, and Yackarawa, in a wood-skin, for a place where the Cowenamon Indians were going to poison a pool so as to obtain its fish. After about two hours hard paddling we arrived at a large cataract, called Cartoweire, and, taking our canoe into smooth water above, found the Indians, eleven in number, busily engaged in beating bundles of a soft yellow root with sticks. These havarie roots were each about two inches in diameter, and of a light yellow colour, containing a yellow creamy juice, having a disagreeable raw smell. Each bundle

was about a foot in diameter and two feet in length. When
thoroughly pounded into pulp, they were thrown into canoes,
in which a little water had been previously placed, and then
the juice was wrung from them. The enclosure to be acted
upon was of an irregular shape, occupying about two acres of
river, and formed by dams of rock, built into the spaces be-
tween rocky areas and small islands. In building this the
Indians had left two large gaps open, one being where the
greatest body of water ran in, and the other where it flowed
out. When we arrived they had closed these gaps with a
wattle arrangement, so that all chances of escape for the fish
were cut off. Three canoes, containing the juice of six bundles
of haiarie, were then taken to the upper end of the enclosure,
and the subtle poison discharged from them. It was borne
down by the slight current, and mingled rapidly with the
pure dark water.
Most of the Indians then got into the
canoes and pushed out, bows and arrows in hand, into the
middle of the enclosure, whilst the remainder, with my men
also furnished with the same weapons, stood upon the rocks
at the edge. In ten minutes time numbers of small fish came
to the surface, and swam uneasily about, trying to rise above

water; then soon were floating about quite dead. After an interval of five minutes more, a single pacu showed its back fin, and also tried to raise its head above water. An instant more, and the whole place swarmed alive with large fish, pacu and cartabac, all struggling and flapping at the surface or whirling round and round. Many tried to force themselves out of the water up the sloping surface of the rocks, and two were successful in this, dying on the strand. From the excited manner in which they struggled, it seemed to me as if the poison had an intoxicating effect upon them. It might have been that the contact of the poison with their gills had produced a feeling of suffocation-hence their endeavours to escape from their native element.

"It was a most exciting scene for a time, as the Indians shot arrow after arrow into the bewildered dying fish and hunted them ashore or into the canoe. In about an hour the murderous work was over, and 150 fine pacu and cartabac were lying dead upon the rocks around the pool, the victims of Indian prowess and poison. During the whole proceedings I stood on the rocks at the upper end of the pool, and had a fine view of the scene, the finest part of which was to see the naked savage, in all his glory, drawing his bow with strength and ease and letting fly his arrows with unerring aim."

Another plant, called Konamie, is used for the same purpose. It belongs to the Composita.

The "two bulbous plants" which supply the glutinous matter I cannot identify.

As to the red pepper, ants, and snake-fangs, I do not believe that they have any effect in strengthening the poison. When rightly prepared, it has about the consistence of treacle, and possesses a fragrant and penetrating odour peculiarly its own. Although so deadly when it directly enters the blood, it is, like the poison of snakes, harmless when swallowed. I have tasted some with which Waterton furnished me, and found it to be intensely bitter, with somewhat of a quassia-like aroma, and that its taste was as unique as its smell.

Waterton not only succeeded in procuring the manufactured poison, but also the whole of the materials of which it is made. Unfortunately, the canoe was capsized in the falls of the Essequibo river, the precious parcel was lost, and there was no second opportunity of replacing it. As to the abandonment of the temporary hut after the Wourali has been made, subsequent travellers have said that the hut is not only abandoned, but burned to the ground, so as not to leave a trace of the mode by which the poison was prepared.

WREN (Troglodytes eudon).

Y.

YAM (Dioscorea sp.).

YAWARACIRIS.-All these little birds are Manakins, q.v., and belong to the genus Pipra.