14:0 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



tube. With this terrible weapon he endeavors to 

 surprise his enemy perhaps some monster of the 

 wood, who, having captured a deer, is tranquilly re- 

 galing himself upon the body. Not the slightest 

 noise betrays the approach of the practised, cautious 

 footstep ; no eye beholds the long slender tube ; and the 

 winged messenger of death, propelled by the silent 

 breath <& the Indian, reaches sometimes after a flight 

 of thirty paces, its unsuspecting victim with unerring 

 certainty. However small the wound may be, the 

 animal falls to the ground in awful convulsions and 

 dies in a few minutes. 



Schleiden states that a multitude of plants of the 

 same family contain similar poisons. Here, however, 

 the poisonous quality rests in their seeds, and this cir- 

 cumstance distinguishes them from those we have 

 mentioned. In the form of strychnine and buncine, 

 they_present to us the two most violent of all vege- 

 table poisons. The bean of S. Ignatius (Ignatius 

 amara) growing in Manilla, and the nux vomica 

 (Strychnos nux vomica) are found everywhere in the 

 tropics. The natives of Madagascar have a custom 

 recalling the ordeals of Europe in the middle ages, 

 by which they make the guilt or innocence of a per- 

 son depend upon the strength of his stomach. The 

 man accused of a crime, is obliged, in the presence of 

 the people and the priests, to swallow a Thangiu 

 nut ; if his stomach is strong enough to vomit up the 

 terrible poison, he is acquitted ; but if not, he is held 

 guilty, and immediately made to undergo his punish- 

 ment, for he dies on the instant. 



