352 THE SWEDISH PAN. 



and has dryed the ground, they are very care- 

 full not to touch it. It is alfo true, that all 

 vegetables prohibited by nature to particular 

 animals are not equally pernicious •, and therefore 

 though through neceflity and hunger they eat 



them, 



6. That no man dared to flea the recent carcafes, as they 

 found by experience, that not only the hands of fuch as 

 attempted it, but their faces too had been inflamed, and 

 mortified, and that death had enfued. 



7. The people enquired of me, whether there were any 

 kinds of poifonous fpiders in that meadow, or whether the 

 water which had a yellowifh tint was not noxious. 



8. That it was not a murrain was clear, becaufe the dif- 

 temper was not contagious, and becaufe that diflemper is 

 not peculiar to the fpring. I faw no fpiders but what are 

 common all over Sweden ; and as to th& water, the fediment 

 at the bottom, that caufed the yellownefs, was nothing but 

 what came from iron, 



9. I was fcarcely got out of the boat, which carried me 

 over the river into the meadow, before i guefled the real 

 caufe of the difcafe. For i there beheld the long-ha-jsd 

 njoaier hemlock. My reafons for guefling this were as follow. 



10. Becaufe in that meadow, where the cattle firil fell ill, 

 this poifonous plant grows ia great plenty, chiefly near the 

 banks of the river. In other places it was fcarce. 



11. The leaft attention will convince us that brutes Ihun 

 whatever is hurtfull to them, and diilinguilh poifonous 

 plants from falutary by natural in.linft ; io that this plant is 

 not eat by them in the fummer, and autumn, which is the 

 reafon that in thofe feafons few cattle dye, viz, only fjch as 

 either accidentally, or prelTed by extreme hunger, eat of it^ 



12. BlU 



