[84] Stanley translates this as “wild ducks.”  Delgado (ut supra) describes a bird called lapay (Dendrocygna vagans—­Eyton.), as similar to the duck in body, but with larger feet, which always lives in the water, and whose flesh is edible.

[85] For descriptions of the birds in the Philippines, see Delgado (ut supra) book v, part i, 1st treatise, pp. 813-853; Report of U.S.  Philippine Commission, 1900, iii, pp. 312-316; and Gazetteer of the Philippine Islands (Washington, 1902), pp. 170, 171.  There are more than five hundred and ninety species of birds in the islands, of which three hundred and twenty-five are peculiar to the archipelago, and largely land birds.  There are thirty-five varieties of doves and pigeons, all edible.

[86] There are now domestic rabbits, and plenty of peacocks.—­Rizal.

[87] Doubtless the python, which is often domesticated in the Philippines.  See Vol.  XII, p. 259, note 73.

[88] La Gironiere (Twenty Years in the Philippines—­trans. from French, London, 1853) describes an interesting fight with a huge crocodile near his settlement of Jala-Jala.  The natives begged for the flesh in order to dry it and use it as a specific against asthma, as they believed that any asthmatic person who lived on the flesh for a certain time would be infallibly cured.  Another native wished the fat as an antidote for rheumatic pain.  The head of this huge reptile was presented to an American, who in turn presented it to the Boston Museum.  Unfortunately La Gironiere’s picturesque descriptions must often be taken with a grain of salt.  For some information regarding the reptiles of the islands see Report of U.S.  Philippine Commission, 1900, iii, pp. 317-319.

[89] Unless we are mistaken, there is a fish in the Filipinas called Pampano.—­Rizal.

[90] For catalogue and scientific description of the mollusks of the Philippines, see the work of Joaquin Gonzalez Hidalgo—­now (1904) in course of publication by the Real Academia de Ciencias of Madrid—­Estudios preliminares sobre la fauna malacologica de las Islas Filipinas.

[91] The Rio Grande.—­Rizal.

[92] No fish is known answering to this description.—­Stanley.

[93] The island of Talim.—­Rizal.

[94] Retana thinks (Zuniga, ii, p. 545*) that this device was introduced among the Filipinos by the Borneans.

[95] A species of fishing-net.  Stanley’s conjecture is wrong.

[96] Esparavel is a round fishing-net, which is jerked along by the fisher through rivers and shallow places. Barredera is a net of which the meshes are closer and tighter than those of common nets, so that the smallest fish may not escape it.

[97] Cf. methods of fishing of North American Indians, Jesuit Relations, vi, pp. 309-311, liv, pp. 131, 306-307.