> FISU POISONING AND POISONS.— EAMLYN-HABRIS AND SMITH. 15 



Order MYRTACEiE. 



EUCALYPTUS MICROTHECA, F.v.M. 



" JINBUL or KURLEAH," Cloncurry, N.Q. 



" COOLIBAR," Normanton, N.Q. 



A specimen has been submitted by Dr. C. Taylor, Normanton, with the 

 following note : — ' ' Coolibar branches and leaves are cut up small and left in 

 water several days until totally discoloured and fish sicken ; universally used. ' ' 



As indicated b}^ the donor's note and by our test experiments the plant is 

 slow-acting but efficacious — death finally ensuing — at considerable concentration. 

 The use of E. microtheca or other Eucalypti is the subject of mention by Sir 

 Thomas Mitchell,^' Palmer,"^ and Walter Koth."-' Palmer, speaking of the blacks 

 of the interior of Queensland, says " the small branches of E. microtheca, the 

 Coolibah or Flooded Box, are cut up and with the leaves are laid in water for 

 several days to sicken fish; it is universally used for this purpose." Roth refers 

 to the use in the Cloncurry, Woonamurra, and Leichhardt-Selwyn districts, where 

 he says "numerous leafy boughs and branches of 'gum-tree' are utilised for 

 capturing fish."*° The whole camp of blacks, working at it, will start throwing 

 these in first thing in the morning ; during the day the water becomes darker and 

 darker, and strongly smelling, until by the following morning at sunrise, when 

 it is almost black, the fish all lie panting on the surface and are easily caught. 



The notes infer the slow nature of the effects and the use in considerable 

 quantities. The effect, indeed, is compatible with low content of tannin, of which 

 our specimen was found to contain in the bark 6 per cent. It is probable that 

 species of Eucalyptus were indiscriminately used. 



Order MYRTACE^. 



BARRINGTONIA SPECIOSA, Linn. 

 '"'ARROO," Townsville District, N.Q. 



The toxic properties would seem to be from recorded use of various parts 

 dispersed throughout the whole plant, including the seed capsules. The Queens- 

 land natives use the bark and leaves, adopting similar methods to those described 

 by Roth for Barringtonia raccmosa. In the districts in and around Townsville 

 the native name of the plant is "Arroo." Here the fruit is eaten as food, and 

 it is not a little strange that this should be so, in the face of the fact that the 

 fruit of this very species is used for fish-poisoning in New Britain, as recorded 

 by Dr. George Brown.*^ Further, the islanders of the Bismarck Archipelago 

 poison by means of the seeds of B. speciosa, which are ground and thrown into 

 the water, the fish snapping at the fragments and becoming stupefied.*- 



The inhabitants of the Mary Ann Islands use the same plant extensively, 



' *' Thos. Mitchell, Expeditions to Aiistralia, vol. ii., 1838, p. 24. 



i\ ^ E. Palmer, Notes on Some Australian Tribes, Journ. Anthrop. Institute, vol. 13^ 

 1884, pp. 321,2. 



-^ 39 w. E. Roth, N.Q. Ethnography, Bull. 3, 1901, para. 15, p. 19. 



*" W. E. Roth, Ethnol. Studies among N.W.C.Q. Aborigines, 1897, chap, v.. The Search 

 for Food. 



^ " George Brown, Melanesians & Polynesians, 1910, p. 



v*2Bii.Q Lajos, Anz. Ethno. Abth. Ungarischen Nat. Museums, 1905. 



