630 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
recalls to mind many of my old acquaintances. I should 
much like to have the work complete, especially as many of 
the Lichens, Mosses, &c., which grow here, are the same as 
what are found in England. 
You have already received from me many letters and news- 
paper accounts of our Poison plants ;* which we have clearly 
ascertained to belong to the Leguminose. No. 203 of the 
general collection, is the one which has done most of the mis- 
chief to the east and south of the Darling Range. No. 204 
is the plant from the Black Adder Creek, used in all the expe- 
riments at Guildford. Nos. 123 and 124 are also known to 
be deleterious. I think, we have in some degree satisfied our- 
selves that the common subcarbonate and other preparations of 
Soda, act in a measure as antidotes to the virulence of the poi- 
son; not that I feel sanguine that anything will ever be dis- 
covered that can avail in protecting our flocks of sheep and 
goats, and herds of cattle, against the effects of these plants, 
which they eat when travelling in the bush: though it is 
doubtless desirable to record accurately every particular rela- 
tive to this curious subject. Out of ten animals, goats and 
sheep, which took the poison, (three had done it of their own 
accord, by eating the young shoots in blossom) and to which 
no antidote was administered, not a single individual reco- 
vered, but all died in from three to fivehours. Eight others, 
which had swallowed equal quantities of the poisonous plant, 
but to whom, from half-an-ounce to two ounces of the common 
subacrbonate and other preparations of soda were adminis- 
tered immediately afterwards, were allalive at the end of eight 
hours ; some lived for sixteen hours, and two goats eventually 
recovered. I noticed. as a curious fact, when witnessing 
these experiments, that both the animals which survived, were 
taken ill within ten minutes of receiving both the poison and 
the soda. One took half-an-ounce, and the other two ounces 
of the supposed antidote, and they struggled, as it were be- 
tween life and death, for about two days ; whereas, several of 
the animals which died, were feeding, as if nothing was the mat- 
* Page 93 of this volume. 
