A very good example of this formation is found in the wooden battle-axe, or “Patoo,” of New Zealand, a weapon which has been long superseded by modern fire-arms. A specimen in my possession is rather more than five feet in length. The head is just like that of an ordinary axe, while the handle tapers gradually to the end, where it terminates in a sharp spike. In actual combat the point was used much more than the axe. WAR AND HUNTING. CHAPTER II. POISON, ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE.--PRINCIPLE OF THE BARB. Poison as applied to Weapons.--Its limited Use.--Animal and Vegetable Poisons.--Animal Poisons.--The Malayan Dagger, or Kris, and two Modes of poisoning it.--The Bosjesmans and their Arrows.--Snake Poison and its Preparation.--The Pseudo-barb.--The Poison-grub, or N’gwa.--Simple Mode of Preparation, and its terrible Effects.--Vegetable Poisons.--The Upas of Malacca.--The Wourali Poison of Tropical America.--Mode of preparing the various Arrows.--The Fan Tribe of West Africa, and their poisoned Arrows.--Subcutaneous Injection.--Examples in Nature.--The Poison-fang of the Serpent.--Sting of the Bee.--Tail of the Scorpion.--Fang of the Spider.--Sting of the Nettle.--Exotic Nettles and their Effects.--The Barb and its Developments.--The “Bunday” of Java.--Reversed Barbs of Western Africa.--Tongans and their Spears.--The Harpoon and Lernentoma, or Sprat-sucker.--The Main Gauche, or Brise-épée. Another advance, if it may so be called, lay in increasing the deadly effect of the weapons by arming them with poison. Without the poison, it was necessary to inflict wounds which in themselves were mortal; but with it a comparatively slight wound would suffice for death, providing only that the poison mixes with the blood. It is worthy of notice that cutting weapons, such as swords and axes, seldom, if ever, have been envenomed, the poison being reserved for piercing weapons, such as the dagger, the spear, and the arrow. ANIMAL POISONS. Perhaps the most diabolical invention of this kind was the Venetian stiletto, made of glass. It came to a very sharp point, and was hollow, the tube containing a liquid poison. When the dagger was used, it was driven into the body of the victim, and then snapped off in the wound, so that the poison was able to have its full effect. Such poisons are of different kinds, and invariably animal or vegetable in their origin. Taking the animal poisons first, we come to the curious mode of poisoning the Malayan dagger, or “Kris.” The blade of the weapon is not smooth, but is forged from very fibrous steel, and then laid in strong acid until it is covered with multitudinous grooves, some of them being often so deep that the acid has eaten its way completely through the blade.