BY J. SHIRLEY, B.SC. 89 



miles from the sea coast, I made enquiries as to the use by the 

 blacks of any plant substance in the capture of fish. That such 

 means were employed was well known to the settlers, many of 

 whom have been born and reared in the triangle lying between 

 the Albert River, the Macpherson Range, and the sea. A plant 

 locally known as the tape cine was named as furnishing 

 the substance. By the aborigines it is termed Nyannum, 

 and with their help the plant was found in the scrubs adjoining 

 the old saw-mill at Mudgeraba, and identified as Stephania her- 

 nandia: folia, belonging to the order Menispermacete. In a paper 

 communicated to the Linnean Society of New South Wales, by 

 Dr. T. L. Bancroft, in November, 1889, it was pointed out that 

 an extract from the root of this plant is extremely poisonous to 

 frogs, and that the poison causes loss of co-ordination of mus- 

 cular movement in the creature. He also states that the action 

 of the poison is similar to that of Picroto.vin, and that like that 

 substance, it is an alkaloid. In a paper to the Royal Society of 

 South Australia, in 1894, Dr. Rennie showed that Picrotoxin, 

 as well as a second poisonous alkaloid, could be found in an 

 extract from this plant. It is strange that the use of this poison 

 should have been discovered and applied to other cold-blooded 

 creatures by the natives of this country, whom writers, especially 

 those who know least about the subject, delight to picture as 

 the lowest of the human race. The part employed by them is 

 the stem, which is cut in lengths of about 2ft., and frayed 

 out by beating, just in the same manner as that by which the 

 native cloth of the South Sea Islanders is made. The structure 

 of the stem is abnormal in menisperms, the medullary rays 

 being in excess, and possibly this aids in the fraying out of the 

 plant. A well-known waterhole or rock-pool, noted os a good 

 haunt for fish, is selected ; and the bruised stem is scattered 

 about in the water of the pool. The alkaloid is extracted from 

 the bruised plant by the water, and its action upon the fish is 

 said to be very rapid. Probably it also causes " a loss of co- 

 ordination of muscular movement," as stated by Dr. Bancroft ; 

 but, whatever the way in which it acts, the fish float on the 

 surface of the water, and soon find their way into the dilly-bags 

 of the operators. It is asserted by the farmers living in the 

 neighbourhood that the fish recover after a time, if left in the 



