vail Naiaecentlin oe) elaine hc aise’ 299 
ee ear KV 
IN the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect 
bespeaks it to be of a great age: it seems to have seen several 
centuries, and is probably coeval with the church, and therefore 
may be deemed an antiquity : the body is squat, short, and thick, 
and measures twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting an head of 
suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male tree, which in the spring 
sheds clouds of dust and fills the atmosphere around with its 
farina.* 
As far as we have been able to observe, the males of this species 
become much larger than the females; and it has so fallen out 
that most of the yew-trees in the church-yards of this neighbour- 
hood are males: but this must have been matter of mere accident, 
since men, when they first planted yews, little dreamed that there 
were sexes in trees. 
Ina yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately grew a middle- 
sized female tree of the same species, which commonly bore great 
crops of berries. By the high winds usually prevailing about the 
autumnal equinox, these berries, then ripe, were blown down into 
the road, where the hogs ate them. And it was very remarkable, 
that, though barrow-hogs and young sows found no inconvenience 
from this food, yet milch-sows often died after such a repast: a 
circumstance that can be accounted for only by supposing that the 
latter, being much exhausted and hungry, devoured a larger 
quantity. 
While mention is making of the bad effects of yew-berries, it 
may be proper to remind the unwary that the twigs and leaves of 
yew, though eaten in a very small quantity, are certain death to 
horses and cows, and that in a few minutes. An horse tied to a 
yew-hedge, or to a faggot-stack of dead yew, shall be found dead 
before the owner can be aware that any danger is at hand; and 
the writer has been several times a sorrowful witness to losses of 
this kind among his friends; and in the island of Ely had once the 
* This is represented in the front of the vignette which heads Letter III., it is stilla 
striking object, and now measures twenty-three feet in girth, 
