636 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



"poison" rtquiring the associated efforts of 

 many persons. 



When the tide recedes entirely from the reefs 

 about tiie isLands, many large and deep pools 

 remain filled with fishes of all sizes and colors. 

 Into these pools the "poison" is placed and in 

 a few moments the fishes come to the surface in 

 such distress that they can easily be picked up. 

 Schools of small fislies coming in across the 

 reef with tlie rising tide are also affected by the 

 drug and are easily secured. 



While most of the species of plants used are 

 distinctly poisonous to tlie human stomach, there 

 is no unwholesomeness attached to the eating of 

 fishes captured by their use. 



Necessarily tliis wholesale method of fish- 

 catching cannot take place very often on account 

 of the great effort required to make it success- 

 ful. Whenever a "fish-poisoning" occurs, it is 

 the occasion of a general picnic accompanied, 

 like other South Sea functions, with feasting, 

 the wearing of flowers and much jollity. Fish- 

 ing of tliis kind is practiced in many parts of 

 Polynesia. 



The accompanying photograph which I se- 

 cured in tlie Tonga Islands some years ago. 

 shows the natives picking up stupefied fishes 

 from a portion of a reef which had been thor- 

 oughly "poisoned" with plant juices. 



At Raratonga they use the grated nut of a 

 plant known to botanists as Barringtonia spe- 

 ciosa, which is scattered over the bare reef to 

 paralyze the fishes which return to their feed- 

 ing ground with the incoming tide. Then the 

 people with baskets wade into the shallow water 

 and gather the finny harvest, dip-nets and spears 

 being merely used to facilitate the work. 



Another Raratongan 

 plant, (Tephrosia pisca- 

 toria), is also used for fish 

 Doisoning. the whole jilaiit 

 being pounded and jiut in- 

 to the water. Such fishing 

 is sometimes practiced 

 nearer home. On Eleuthera 

 Island in tlie Bahamas, the 

 negroes use the bark peeled 

 from the roots of a plant 

 locally known as dogwood, 

 which is placed in gunny 

 sacks and pounded. The 

 juice of the plant discolors 

 the water in a few mo- 

 ments, bringing the gasp- 

 ing fishes to the surface 

 where they are easily 

 picked up with dip-nets. 



The India;is of Arkansas and douhthss other 

 sections of the middle west, formerly resorted 

 to similar methods of fish-catching. 



Bates long ago described in his classic Natu- 

 ralist on the Amazons, a method practiced by 

 the Indians of the Tapajos in taking fishes. 

 The plant used was the poisonous liana, (Paiil- 

 linia pinnata) , which was crushed for its milky 

 juice. This placed in the water soon discolored 

 it and brought the fishes to the surface with the 

 gills wide open, in an apparently suffocated con- 

 dition. 



THE BURBOT. 



THE only fish of the cod family inliabiting 

 the fresh waters of North America is the 

 burbot, {Lota maculosa), which is sliown in 

 the accompanying photograph of a specimen liv- 

 ing in the Aquarium. It is variously known as 

 burbot, ling, lawyer and fresh-water cusk, and 

 frequents the rivers of our northern States, ex- 

 tending through British America to Alaska. 



In the Yukon River, where it is known to the 

 natives as losh, it often weighs as much as sixty 

 pounds. It is an important food fish to the na- 

 tives of the far north, but in the southern part 

 of its range where it is of smaller size, it is con- 

 sidered coarse and tasteless and seldom eaten. 



The burbot frequents brackish waters at the 

 mouths of some of the large Alaskan rivers, run- 

 ning up into the lower Yukon after the river 

 freezes, where it is taken by the natives through 

 the ice in fish traps. 



Great quantities of the fish are used as food 

 for the native dogs, the liver vields an abun- 



