16 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 



and Alvin Seale*^ tells us " that in former times the natives caught and dried 

 great quantities of fish by its means, a grand fishing fiesta being held at certain 

 seasons of the year. The Spanish authorities, however, finding that this was 

 depleting the waters by killing young as well as old, abolished the method in 

 1894. "When the Americans took possession the law was considered obsolete. By 

 chance I was present at the first of these fiestas that had taken place for seven 

 years. Fully several hundred people took part in the fishing. An immense deep 

 pool several hundred feet deep, a short distance inside the reef, was surrounded 

 by a line of seines. At low tide about one barrel of this precious juice was poured 

 into the pool. The effect was almost instantaneous; himdreds of fishes came 

 gasping and struggling to the top of the water, where they were captured and 

 killed by the natives. No ill-effects seemed to follow the eating of these poisoned 

 fish." 



Parkinson** records that in the island of St. Matthias the fruits of a 

 Barringtonia species are used as floats for their nets, and although fish-poisons are 

 known and used by the Gazelle Peninsula natives it has apparently not occurred 

 to them to put the fruit to the same use as elsewhere. Fijians use the outer bark 

 of the fruit for a similar purpose, so Seemann*^ tells us. 



In our hands infusions of the bark proved effective and fairly rapidly 

 acting. Initial extreme excitement with exaggerated movement of the gills appear 

 predominant symptoms. The bark is alkaloid, saponin, practically tannin-free, 

 and successive ether and alcohol extractions yielded innocuous infusions. The 

 aqueous infusion of material, after exhaustion by ether and alcohol, proved 

 readily toxic, but the nature of the active principle has not been ascertained. 



CAREYA AUSTRALIS, F.v.M. 



" IMIJSSIL" (MUSSAL), Cardwell District, N.Q. 



'' RAROO," Dunk Island. 



" BARKABAH," Burdekin River, Q. 



This well-known and effective fish-poison grows plentifully in forest 

 country and along the foreshore of the Cardwell district, being known in the 

 vernacular of the white man as " Cocky Apple" {S. Greedy) and as " Cockatoo 

 Apple" at the Proserpine (Scrgt. Geary). Its use is general in either fresh or 

 salt water, but at Cardwell was resorted to when Cupania or Derris were unavail- 

 able. James Murrell mentions a differentiation on the Burdekin between the 

 bark of the stem and bark of root for use in fresh or salt water. On Dunk Island, 

 the bark at the base of the trunk and of the roots was macerated in the water in 

 which fish were observed by being beaten with a nulla-nulla, the mass being 

 thrown into the pool. Here also, on the authority of E. J. Banfield, the leaves 

 were accredited medicinal virtue, being beaten and applied as fomentations. 



The bark is saponaceous. Infusions show characteristic frothing at great 

 dilutions, and ha?molyse at concentration 1 : 1,000. A separated sapotoxin fraction 

 gave characteristic cherry-red colouration with concentrated sulphuric acid, but 

 was devoid of hemolytic power. 



* ** Alvin Seale, Report of a Mission to Guam, Caroline Island ; Occasional Papers, B.P.B. 

 Museum, Honolulu, pt. ii., 1901, p. 61. 



^** Parkinson, R., Dreissig Jahre in der Siidsee (1907), p. 326. 

 "^ « Seemann, D., Flora Vitiensis 1865 (1873). 



