Hawks are trapped by selecting a bare tree, that stands in an open space:  its top is sawn off level, and a trap is put upon it:  the bait is laid somewhere near, on the ground:  the bird is sure to visit the pole, either before or after he has fed.

Poison.—­Savages frequently poison the water of drinking-places, and follow, capture, and eat the poisoned animals.  Nux vomica or strychnine is a very dangerous poison to use, but it affords the best means of ridding a neighbourhood of noxious beasts and birds:  if employed to kill beasts, put it in the belly; if, birds, in the eye, of the bait.  Meat for killing Beasts should be set after nightfall; else the crows and other birds will be sure to find it out, and eat it up before the beasts have time to discover it.  It would be unsafe to eat an animal killed with strychnine, on account of the deadliness of the poison.

The Swedes put fulminating-powder in a raw shankbone, and throw it down to the wolves; when one of these gnaws and crunches it, it blows his head to atoms.

Poisoned Bullets.—­I take the following extract from ’Galignani’s Messenger:’—­“A new method of catching whales is now being tried with considerable success, science having contributed to its discovery.  Our readers are well aware of the deadly effects of the Indian poison called wurare, or woorali, concerning which we have often had occasion to record the most interesting experiments, especially in mentioning the attempts made to use it as a specific for lockjaw, its peculiar action consisting in relaxing the muscular system.  Strychnine is a poison producing the contrary effect, the excessive contraction of that system, or, in other words, tetanus, or lockjaw.  It is a curious fact that by the conjunction of these two agents, so diametrically opposite in their effects, a poison is obtained that will kill almost instantly if only administered in the dose of half a milligramme per kilogramme of the animal to be subjected to its action, provided its weight do not exceed ten kilogrammes.  If larger, the dose must be proportionally increased.  M. Thiercelin, the inventor of this poison, composes it by mixing a salt of strychnine with one-twentieth of woorali.  To apply it to whale fishing, he makes the compound up into cartridges of thirty grammes (an ounce) each, which is enough to kill an animal of 60,000 kilogrammes weight.  Each cartridge is imbedded in the gunpowder contained in an explosive shell which is fired off on the whale.  In a late whaling voyage ten whales received such missiles, and all died within from four to eighteen minutes after the infliction of the wound.  Out of these ten whales, six were cut up for their blubber and whalebone.  Their remains were handled by careless men, who frequently had scratches and sores on their skin, and yet not one of them suffered the slightest injury, a circumstance which Shows that the poison cannot be transmitted from the fish to the men.  Its poisonous action on the whale is, however, so great that practically the dose will have to be diminished, so that the death of the creature may not be so sudden.  We should not forget to state that two out of the ten whales above mentioned were lost by one of the many accidents incident to whaling, and that two others were of a kind that is not worth fishing for.”