Vol. XXV. No. 8.] 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
113 
until he finds two sorts of bulbous plants. They 
yield glutinous juice of a greenish hue. He cuts 
a number of stalks from tliem, which, keeping 
scrupulously separated from the bundle he lias 
already made, he deposits in a vessel that he car- 
ries for this purpose slung between his shoulders. 
Now, having collected all the vegetable matter 
that he judges necessary for the poison bath, he 
proceeds to glean the rest of its ingredients from 
tlic animal kingdom. To this end he first sets out 
upon a hunt for ants. It will take two kinds to 
serve his needs. One is large, black, ferocious, 
and so venomous, withal, tliat its bite will cause a 
fever. He usually finds these ants in the ground, 
from which he digs them out, for luckily the 
creatures have a habit of modestly hiding them- 
selves the greatsr part of the time. The other ant 
that he selects is a tiny red variety, which makes 
its nest under some leaf, and stings like a nettle. 
When he has secured as many of these as lie 
wants, his work in the forest is done, and he can 
turn homeward again, — for the strong Indian pep- 
per, of which a quantity is used, grows about his 
hut, and the snake fangs -that are to be pounded 
and added to the mixture he usually has on hand. 
Those of both the labarri and counacouchi snakes 
are always considered indispensable, and so he is 
provident enough to secure a supply of them to 
keep in store wlienever opportunity oflers. 
Tlie ingredients being all at hand, he now enters 
upon the work of preparing and mixing. He again 
gives his first attention to the woorali vine and 
bitter root, scraping them into the finest and thin- 
nest of rit)bons and threads. When that is done 
he puts them into a sort of draiiiiug-dish which 
li(^ has woven of several thicknesses of leaves, sets 
it over an earthen jar, and pours water upon the 
mass. The liquor, as it slowly trickles through 
into the jar, looks like coffee. The bulbous stems 
he first bruises and crushes, then with his hands 
squeezes out their juice and adds in its due pro- 
portion to the cofTee-colored liquid in tlie jar. He 
grinds the pepper to a powder ; he pulverizes the 
snake fangs ; he bruises the bodies of tlie ants 
until the resulting mass is as smooth as he can 
make it, and then stirs the whole into the jar, 
which he now puts over a slow fire, where it 
steeps for a while and finally comes to a boil. As 
the boiling begins, a scum rises, wliich he deftly 
takes off, using a leaf for a skimmer; and from 
time to time he adds a little more liquid from the 
macerated woorali mixture, as it seems to him to 
111' needed. After boiling for a while, anotlier 
thick scum of a dark brown color gradually be- 
gins to gtither. This is by no means to be re- 
moved, for it is a sign tliat the cooking is nearly 
done. When notliing but this scum remains in 
the jar the poison is supposed to be completed. 
Some arrows are dipped in to try its strength, 
wliich proving satisfactory, the Indian pours the 
poison, now of a thick sirupy consistency, into a 
small jar or ciilabash. First he gives his jar a 
cover of leaves, and tlien adds a bit of deer skin, 
which he ties tightly over the opening. He finally 
hangs it up in what he considers to be the very 
driest place to be found in tlie hut, and even from 
thence he takes it down often to suspend it for a 
w Idle over the fire, that it may be insured from 
contracting dampness. 
As I said at tlie beginning of my sketch, the 
lU'atli produced by the action of woorali is both a 
quick and easy one. Mr. Waterton claims that 
there is absolutely no pain felt, "saving the smart 
at the time the arrow enters.'" Nor does the 
poison render unfit for eating the flesh of the ani- 
mal which dies from its eflects. In confirmation 
of his statement Mr. Waterton tells that he saw 
a large -ox, which was so tied to a stake that he 
could move freely. Three poisoned arrows were 
shot into him, care beiug taken to avoid wounding 
him in any vital part. One arrow entered each 
thigh and the third grazed the tips of his nostrils. 
It was about four minutes before the poison began 
to act; then the ox set his feet a trifle farther 
apart, planting them a little more firmly. At the 
end of a quarter of an hour he bent his head, 
smelled the ground, and started to walk about; 
but after a step or two he lost control of his legs 
aud fell, rolling over upon his side, where he lay 
quietly for a few minutes. Then his breathing 
became labored, his limbs were somewhat con- 
vulsed, and he frothed at the mouth. Soon only 
a faint fluttering of the heart showed life, and in 
twenty-five minutes from the time the first arrow 
entered his body he was quite dead. Mr. Water- 
ton ate a portion of his fiesh and pronounced it to 
be " very sweet and savory." 
[Original In POPUUUB SCIENOE NEWS.] 
COMPARATIVE PLANT MORPHOLOGV. 
BY C. SIGMUND RAUE. 
The great order Leguminosce would at first seem 
to be very distantly related to the vast and exten- 
sive Compositai, the foremost difterence being that 
they belong to entirely different divisions — the 
Leguminosoe to those flowers having their petals 
separate and distinct, (polypetalous), and the Com- 
positcB to those in which the petals are slightly or 
entirely united into one piece (gamopetalous) . This 
character, however, is not a permanent distinc- 
tion, as a number of fiowers from the former 
order may safely be called gamopetalous, the 
corolla being united at the base. 
To compare the two orders we will therefore 
choose such a representative of the Leguminosoi 
which is gamopetalous, TrifoUum (clover) being 
an excellent genus to illustrate this point. As a 
number of orders beside the Leguminosm contain 
flowers of both divisions, i. e., both polypetalous 
and gamopetalous, — for instance, Primulacecc, Sty- 
racaceoe, and Ericaceoe, — this feature has less value 
than might be expected. The characteristic ar- 
rangement of the stamens in Leguminosce is very 
difl'erent — almost exactly the reverse — from that 
in Compositai. In the former the filaments of the 
stamens are united below, either into one set of 
ten, (monadelphovs), or into two sets, consisting 
of nine in one, and one stamen in the other set 
(diadelphous) . The latter is more common, and 
the tulie thus fonned is normally free from the 
corolla; but in TrifoUum the corolla is more or 
less adnate to it, below. Jn Compositm, on the 
other hand, the filaments are distinct, and are in- 
serted on the tube of the corolla, while the anthers 
of the stamens are united by their edges into a 
tube (syngenesious) . Tlie common arrangement in 
Leguminosm, described above, is not constant, a 
good example of distinct stamens being Cladrastis 
tinctoria. 
I^et us examine the inflorescence. The dense 
head of TrifoUum pratense, surrounded below by 
the broad, lanceolate leaf stipules, has some re- 
semblance, at least, to the involucrate heads of 
LiguUflorm in CompositcE. This is merely a resem- 
blance, however, as tlie heads of Gompositm are 
morphologically different from tliat inflorescence 
termed a head in other orders. 
The calyx of the Buffalo clover ( T. reflexum) has 
a remarkable resemblance to the pappus of some 
Compositx. The calyx teeth are sleuder, plumose, 
and pappus-like, persistent in their fruit. This is 
similar to what we have in those Compositce with a 
plumose pappus, — Tragopogoii, for example, — the 
essential difference being, that m the latter (TVo- 
gopogon) we have an inferior, and in the former 
(3". reflexum) a superior ovary. The ovary of both 
orders is one-celled, consisting of but one carpil- 
lary leaf in Leguminosoe., i. e., simple. In the Com- 
positce it is compound, as is shown by the cleft 
style, and it contains but one seed. The Legu- 
minosm bear legumes, as the name implies, and in 
THfoUum there are from one to six seeds. 
In thus comparing the two orders, we have seen 
merely resemblances, not true relations ; but these 
resemblances still point out that there is some re- 
lation between orders so far different and sepa- 
rated. 
+♦> 
THE SPIROGRAPH. 
The ingenious little instrument illustrated in 
Fig. 1 is the invention of a French engineer, and 
is designed for drawing curves and spirals with 
the same accuracy with which circles are drawn 
with the ordinary compasses, of which the spiro- 
graph is only a simple modification. 
Fig. 1. 
As shown in the engraving, it consists of a. pair 
of compasses witli one vertical aud one inclined 
leg. Tlie inclined leg is attached to a sleeve (6) 
which revolves around the shaft of the vertical 
leg (c). A screw (d) binds it firmly to the shaft 
wheu necessary, and a spring (a) and nut (e) en- 
able oi^p to vary the distance between the two 
legs as may be desired. In the end of the vertical 
leg is inserted a dry point (/), and the inclined 
leg is provided with any suitable marking appara- 
tus, such as a peucil point, a drawing pen, or a 
pen for making dotted or irregular lines. The 
two legs are connected together by a thread (F). 
Fig. 2. 
In operation the instrument is held by the knob 
(j/) at the top by one baud, and the inclined leg 
revolved around the vertical one with the other. 
As it revolves, the thread is wound upon the dry 
point (/), and the distance between the two is 
constantly aud regularly diminished. As a conse- 
quence, the marking point describes a perfectly 
regular spiral, the form of which may be varied 
