The Scottish Naturalist. ' 141 



roughish-leaved grasses thus act mechanically in clearing them 

 of this troublesome parasite, which, or something like it, is 

 very frequent in them. Cats sometimes chew up broad-leaved 

 grasses as keenly as dogs, and their doing so is looked upon 

 •as evidence that they are unwell. 



"In the large sheep park at Prestonhall, we had a large 

 number of old Holly trees, which in autumn 1851 were 

 attacked by the sheep peeling off and eating the bark. To 

 save them from destruction, we had to use means for their 

 immediate protection, and after a fortnight or three weeks these 

 attacks ceased, and were never repeated for the remaining 

 eight years that I lived there. The shepherds in the district 

 said that the sheep had used the bark for either the prevention or 

 cure of some disease, and not for food, of which they had plenty 

 in the shape of pasturage at the time. 



" Gerard says of Dog's-bane, that " it is a deadly and danger- 

 ous plant, especially to four footed beasts." M'olfs-bane is a 

 name applied by him to two plants very different from the 

 Aconite. An arrow dipped in the juice of which, and a man 

 or four footed beast wounded therewith, 'they die within half an 

 hour after remedilesse.' The Aconiium he calls ' Mithridate 

 wolf's-bane.' " 



Mr. George R. Jesse, author of the well-known " Researches 

 into the History of the British Dog," published in 1866, 

 writing from Henbury, Macclesfield, Cheshire, on 17th April, 

 1875, says:— 



" There is no doubt whatever as to the Dog grass.* That I 

 know for certain. Try a poor creature who is chained like a 

 malefactor near his master's door, lingering out a miserable 

 life in captivity, as Professor David Low well said it. Try 

 him with a handful of it, which the poor tyrannised-over 

 brute has seen waving a few yards from him, and longing for in 

 vain for many a day, and see if he will not think you a friend. 



To Dr. M'Dowall of Morpeth, I am indebted for the following 

 instances of so-called " Monomania in Horses " — " The following 

 curious facts are extracted from a paper by Professor Rodet, in 

 the " Veterinarian," a sensible monthly publication : — 



* Cynosurus cristatus — otherwise known as "Dog's-tail grass" — so 

 named according to Hooker & Arnott's "British Flora," (1850, p. 542), 

 "from the shape of its spike," and not from the use of the plant medi- 

 cinally or otherwise by the dog. 



