774 
POISON TREE. 
undoubted authority, that they also destroy mice. A gentleman 
residing at Keswick has published a letter in the Sporting Magazine, 
in which he says, that one evening, in the latter end of July he 
observed a rustling in the strawberry bed in his garden, and found 
that a toad had just seized a field-mouse, which had got upon the 
toad’s back, scratching and biting to get released, but in vain. The 
toad kept his hold, and, as the strength of the mouse failed, he gra- 
dually drew the unfortunate little animal into his mouth, and gorged 
him. Another correspondent in the same magazine, relates a won^- 
derful instance of the voracity of stoats: some workmen, on removing 
a pile of faggots near some coppice, where it had lain about five 
months, found sixty-three rabbit skins, and twenty-five hare skins, 
all perfectly whole, besides fragments of skins ; on removing a few 
more bundles, they found six stoats, four of which were killed, the 
other two escaped. It is generally thought that stoats merely suck 
the blood of these animals, but this fact proves that the opinion is 
erroneous. 
Poison Tree of Java. 
This is a tree which has often been described by naturalists ; but 
its existence has been very generally doubted, and the descriptions 
given of it, containing much of the marvellous, have been often 
treated as idle fictions. N. P. Foersch, how^ever, in an account 
of it, written in Dutch, asserts that it does exist; and tells us, that 
he once doubted it as much as any person, but, determined not to 
trust general opinions, he made the most particular inquiries possible ; 
the 'result of which was, that he found it was situated in the island of 
Java, about twenty-seven leagues from Batavia, fourteen from Soura 
Charta, the emperor’s seat, and about nineteen from Tinkjoe, the 
residence of the sultan of Java. It is surrounded on all sides by 
hills and mountains, and the adjacent country for twelve miles round 
the tree is totally barren. Our author says, he has gone round the 
spot at about eighteen miles from the centre, and on all sides he 
found the country equally dreary, which he ascribes to its noxious 
eliluvia. The poisoir procured from it is a gum issuing from between 
the bark and the tree ; and it is brought by malefactors who have been 
condemned to death, but were allowed bv this alternative to have a 
chance for their lives. 
An old ecclesiastic, our author informs us, dwelt on the outside of 
the surrounding hills, whose business it was to prepare the criminals 
for their fate, if death should be the consequence of their expedition. 
And indeed, so fatal is its efiluvia, that he acknowledged scarcely 
two out of twenty returned, from above seven hundred whom he had 
dismissed. Mr. Foersch adds, that he had seen several of the crimi- 
nals who had returned, and who told him, that the tree stands on the 
borders of a rivulet, is of a middling size, and that five or six young 
ones of the same kind stand close to it. They could not, however, 
see any other planter shrub near it, and the ground was of brownish 
sand, full of stones and dead bodies, and difficult to pass. No ani- 
mal whatever is ever seen there alive ; and such as get there by any 
