BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 631 
ter with them, for eight hours after receiving the poison and 
the soda, and yet were found dead the next morning. In 
these experiments, the stomachs and entrails of the dead ani- 
mals were burnt, and the flesh, well roasted, was given to two 
kangaroo dogs, being believed innocuous when so cooked, but 
on the contrary, they both died from it. The mode of admi- 
nistering the plant, was by pounding a handfull in a mortar, 
pouring water on it, and giving a common black bottle full of 
the preparation to the creatures. We instituted a series of 
experiments, by way of trying how far it is practicable to 
make ruminating animals vomit, by compelling them to swal- 
low warm water and powerful emetics; but we could not 
succeed. 1 have observed that sheep, after eating too 
many of the young tender leaves of the dwarf Xanthorhea, 
will sometimes relieve themselves by discharging a portion of 
the food from their ruminating stomachs: but it seems to me 
that they do this, by throwing up the food as if to chew the 
cud. They ejecta portion, chew the remainder and swallow 
it down, and so on. I have had another antagonist on the 
subject of the poison plant, in the person of Mr. L., a 
surgeon, who has lately come to the Swan River to 
settle, accompanied by two of his brothers. He tried 
some experiments with the common sort, No. 203; I do 
not know how he prepared or administered the plant, but 
he arrived at the conclusion that it is perfectly inert. When 
he had nearly finished the trials to his own satisfaction, a 
native brought him the plant No. 123, (before noticed) of which 
he gave some to the goat on which he had made the experi- 
ments with the common kind, and going very shortly after- 
wards to bed, he found, on rising next morning, that the goat 
had died in the night, and what vexed him still more, he had an 
additional proof of the poisonous nature of one or the other 
of these plants, in the fate of a valuable European dog which 
he had brought with him; for, being suffered to eat part of 
the goat, the poor favourite expired shortly afterwards in 
great agony. It cannot be known with any certainty, that it 
was the plant last administered which caused these fatal effects, 
but for some months it has been ascertained to be injurious, 
