New York, December 15, 1915. No. 25 



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Published to advance the Science of cold-blooded vertebrates 



FISHING WITH POISON IN AFRICA 



During the American Museum Expedition to 

 the Belgian Congo, 1909-1915, we had opportunity 

 to gather a large collection of fish from the Congo 

 River and its northeastern affluents. 



It may be interesting to give a short account of 

 one of the most successful methods of fishing used 

 by the natives of the Logo and Bakango tribes of 

 Farad je (Uele District) on the Dungu River, an 

 affluent of the Uele-Ubangi system. At the appoint- 

 ed day in the early morning a crowd of women and 

 children set out with baskets full of leaves of a large 

 bush with white pea-like flowers (Tephrosia) , which 

 they cultivate in their villages. At a particular rocky 

 place where the river was about 500 yards wide, they 

 selected one of the largest rocks forming a low island. 

 They threw these leaves into the circular erosions, 

 which thus served as mortars. Two or three women 

 over one hole would busily handle the pestles crush- 

 ing the leaves, keeping time to the songs of the merry 

 crowd. In the meantime a few of the men and boys 

 had, downstream, constructed a slight barrier of 

 branches and green twigs across the shallow riverbed. 

 Now these slowly came up stream with their dugouts, 

 and, with good wishes for success, received the green 

 mush from the holes in large, wide-meshed baskets. 

 Again paddling upward for a few hundred yards, 



