It is natural to imagine that when a slight wound only is inflicted the
game will make its escape. Far otherwise; the wourali poison almost
instantaneously mixes with blood or water, so that if you wet your finger
and dash it along the poisoned arrow in the quickest manner possible you
are sure to carry off some of the poison. Though three minutes generally
elapse before the convulsions come on in the wounded bird, still a stupor
evidently takes place sooner, and this stupor manifests itself by an
apparent unwillingness in the bird to move. This was very visible in a
dying fowl.

Having procured a healthy full-grown one, a short piece of a poisoned blow-
pipe arrow was broken off and run up into its thigh, as near as possible
betwixt the skin and the flesh, in order that it might not be incommoded by
the wound. For the first minute it walked about, but walked very slowly,
and did not appear the least agitated. During the second minute it stood
still, and began to peck the ground; and ere half another had elapsed it
frequently opened and shut its mouth. The tail had now dropped and the
wings almost touched the ground. By the termination of the third minute it
had sat down, scarce able to support its head, which nodded, and then
recovered itself, and then nodded again, lower and lower every time, like
that of a weary traveller slumbering in an erect position; the eyes
alternately open and shut. The fourth minute brought on convulsions, and
life and the fifth terminated together.

The flesh of the game is not in the least injured by the poison, nor does
it appear to corrupt sooner than that killed by the gun or knife. The body
of this fowl was kept for sixteen hours in a climate damp and rainy, and
within seven degrees of the equator, at the end of which time it had
contracted no bad smell whatever and there were no symptoms of