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Aquarium Number 
PREPARED BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE AQUARIUM 
ZOOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY BULLETI 
PE umber 38 
Published by the New York Zoological Society 
March, 1910 
FISHING WITH POISONS. 
HE New York Aquarium, while the largest 
institution of its kind in the world, is still 
sadly: limited in its collections of aquatic life, 
and the Director does not always have new ex- 
hibits to draw upon for matter for this ButiE- 
TIN. Let us leave our restricted field in New 
York for a few minutes and visit the world’s 
great center of fish life—Polynesia. 
The aborigines of many countries resort at 
times to methods of fish catching that are 
searcely known to the civilized world. Al- 
though practiced in widely-separated regions, 
the methods of taking fishes by poisons, have a 
TONGA ISLANDERS POISON FISHING ON THE REEF. 
common resemblance in that they all involve the 
temporary stupefying of the fishes taken. 
Whereyer practiced, the catching is done with- 
out apparatus of any sort, other than the locally 
prepared drug employed for the purpose, which 
is placed in the water in large quantities. This 
in apparently all cases, consists of the juices of 
crushed plants, different kinds being used in dif- 
ferent countries. 
The plant, of whatever species is available, 
is gathered in great quantities and crushed until 
a sufficient supply of the thick, gummy juice is 
procured the gathering and preparation of the 
