84 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



grades and going through high school, the young FiHpino's am- 

 bition is to go to one of the overtaxed universities and l)ecome a 

 scientist or professional man, especially a lawyer. W'hat benefits this 

 higher education will have for the Filipinos time alone will tell. 



The national drink of the Filipinos is the liquid known as " tuba." 

 It is not as generally thought the fermented milk or water of the 

 cocoanut, but the fermented sap of the tree. The trees set aside for 

 tuba extraction are not allowed to produce nuts. The buds are cut 

 oft' and the fruit bearing stalks incised, the end being inserted in a 

 hollow joint of the bamboo called a " bombon." In the bottom of 

 the bombon is placed a very little of the powdered Tonga bark 

 i^Rhhoplwra longissima) to give the tuba a reddish color and to 

 counteract the laxative eft'ects of the sap. Fermentation starts almost 

 immediately after the sap begins to flow. The tuba-gatherer carries 

 on his back a large joint of bamboo in which to put the sap collected 

 from the Ijombon, a swab made from a piece of bamboo to clean the 

 bombon, a cocoanut shell with the powdered bark, and a crescent 

 shaped knife to slice the end of the stalk. The tree is tapped twice 

 a day — once at about sunrise and again in the afternoon ; the sap 

 flows freely for about two hours, then stops until tap]ied in the 

 afternoon. The tuba-man easily disposes of his morning and evening 

 draught, which is palatable and stimulating. 



Of the animals of the Philippines the carabao may be considered 

 the most useful. An unwritten law of the land is that a carabao has 

 the right of way on all roads, even the railroad trains being stopped 

 when the engineer sees the carabao crossing the track ahead, for one 

 never knows what the beast intends to do next. 



The National Museum informs me that the collections brought 

 back by this expedition are of particular value to them in supple- 

 menting the earlier marine dredgings of the U. S. Fisheries Steamer 

 Albatross in l*hili])pine and adjacent waters in 1907-10. The work 

 of that vessel was principally in the deeper waters of the region, 

 while my collecting, by reason of its field of action, was primarily 

 littoral in character and rounded out many of the series of Philippine 

 invertebrate marine life in the national collections. The expedition 

 illustrates the advantages which may accrue through cooperative 

 arrangement between two branches of the Government service. The 

 Museum officials were highly appreciative of the cooperation of the 

 Navy Department, which resulted in obtaining valuable natural history 

 material amounting in all to some 14,500 specimens of mammals, 

 birds, reptiles, fishes, crustaceans, insects, mollusks, and other forms. 



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