e of these animals
that they are dispatched to distant places for the purpose. Their
contrivance for capturing them, which I, however, never personally
witnessed, consists of a light raft of bamboo, with a stage, on which,
several feet above the water, a dog or a cat is bound. Alongside
the animal is placed a strong iron hook, which is fastened to the
swimming bamboo by means of fibers of abaca. The crocodile, when
it has swallowed the bait and the hook at the same time, endeavors
in vain to get away, for the pliability of the raft prevents its
being torn to pieces, and the peculiar elasticity of the bundle of
fibers prevents its being bitten through. The raft serves likewise
as a buoy for the captured animal. According to the statements of
the hunters, the large crocodiles live far from human habitations,
generally selecting the close vegetation in an oozy swamp, in which
their bellies, dragging heavily along, leave trails behind them which
betray them to the initiated. After a week the priest mentioned that
his party had sent in three crocodiles, the largest of which, however,
measured only eighteen feet, but that he had not kept one for me,
as he hoped to obtain one of thirty feet. His expectation, however,
was not fulfilled.

[Ignatius bean.] In the environs of Basey the Ignatius bean grows
in remarkable abundance, as it also does in the south of Samar and
in some other of the Bisayan islands. It is not met with in Luzon,
but it is very likely that I have introduced it there unwittingly. Its
sphere of propagation is very limited; and my attempts to transplant
it to the Botanical Garden of Buitenzorg were fruitless. Some large
plants intended for that purpose, which during my absence arrived
for me at Daraga, were incorporated by one of my patrons into his
own garden; and some, which were collected by himself and brought
to Manila, were afterwards lost. Every effort to get these seeds
(kernels), which are used over the whole of Eastern Asia as medicine,
to germinate miscarried, they having been boiled before transmission,
ostensibly for their preservation, but most probably to secure the
monopoly of them.

[Strychnine.] According to Flueckinger, [184] the gourd-shaped
berry of the climbing shrub (Ignatia amara, L. Strychnos Ignatii,
Berg. Ignatiana Philippinica. Lour.) contains twenty-four irregular
egg-shaped seeds of the size of an inch which, however, are not so
poisonous as the Ignatius beans, which taste like