66 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



by the want of green vegetation — soon comes to prefer it to any other food, and 

 j&nally refuses any other, leaves the herd and wildly searches for loco. The first efifect 

 upon the animal is hallucination. When led or ridden up to some trifling obstruc- 

 tion, such as a bar or a rope lying in the road, he stops short, and if urged on leaps 

 over it as if it were a rail fence four feet high. Seemingly the optic nerve is affected; 

 all sense of distance and dimension seems to be lost; a barn near at hand is to him 

 afar oflf, and one a mile away near by. He will go headlong against a barn or a rock, 

 or over a precipice, as if he were totally blind. The animal will, perhaps, let one 

 get close to him, then suddenly and wildly run away at full speed and as suddenly 

 stop, turn around, and it may be, come right back, stop short, stare, " and act like 

 mad." 



Mr. Wm. Smith, in the employ of Bollinger <fe Schlupp, ranchmen, seventeen 

 miles south of Kiowa; Mr. D. R. Streeter, upon the "Z & Z" ranch, near Kiowa: and 

 Mr. Steele, above referred to, are all quite familiar with the symptoms, and agree in 

 every prominent particular concerning them. Mr. Steele gives as one of the prom- 

 inent characteristics of the disease, " a stony stare." " If a sharp, quick motion is 

 made before the animal's eyes, such as throwing up of the arms suddenly, it is likely 

 to fall to the ground in apparent fright, as though not able to control its muscles." 

 Sometimes a horse is seized as with a mania, in which he is quite uncontrollable 

 and dangerous. He rears, even to falling backward, runs, or gives several successive 

 leaps forward, and generally falls. His eyes are rolled upward until the whites can 

 only be seen, which are strongly injected, and since he can see nothing is as apt to 

 leap toward a wall or a man as in any other direction. Anything that excites him 

 appears to induce such fits, which are perhaps more apt to occur in crossing water 

 than elsewhere, and the animal sometimes falls so exhausted as to drown in water 

 not over two feet deep. He loses flesh from the first, and presents the appearance 

 of a skeleton. Nutritive energy seems to be paralyzed. In the last stage he only 

 goes from loco to water and back. His gait is feeble and uncertain; eyes sunken, 

 flat and glassy; his coat rough and lusterless, and in general the animal seems to 

 suffer from starvation and constant excitement of the nervous system. Sometimes 

 also he appears to experience acute pain, causing him to run from place to place, 

 paw and roll until he falls, and then dies in a few moments. A correspondent from 

 Texas states "he cannot tell when a horse is 'locoed' until he drives him very hard. 

 After becoming heated he begins to be excited, and then the peculiar efifect of loco 

 appears." 



There are two plants known as crazy weed, common in Kansas, Colorado, and 

 New Mexico — the Astragalus molUssimus, and Oxytropis Lamberti, both belonging to 

 the natural order Leguminosse. E. A. Popenoe, Manhattan, states he has received 

 from different parts, as specimens of crazy weed, beside the above, the following: 

 Malvastrum coccineum, Sophora sericea, and Amarantus albiis; but the writer has 

 found from personal investigation that the farmers of our own and adjacent States 

 mean by this title, "crazy weed," one or other of the two species above mentioned. 

 Both the Astragalus and Oxytropis are rather attractive plants, and keep their 

 color all winter. 



The Astragalus grows on high ground and rather dry soil which is also gravelly 

 and sandy. It blooms about June, and bears a bright-colored flower, rather attractive 

 in its appearance. There are a great many stalks proceeding from the base. These 

 stalks are reclining toward the base and erect and recurved above; subcaulescent, 

 with soft, silky, villous pubescence. The leaflets usually in pairs, except the upper 

 one (composed of from ten to twenty pairs) are somewhat densely clothed with soft, 

 silky hairs. The flower stalk is usually longer than the leaf stalk, naked below, scape- 



