AGADEMY OF SCIENCES. 3 
Walton donated specimen of Liparis pulchellus (?) or mucosus, 
Ayres; Mr. B. L. Savory, of Tuolumne County, presented, 
through Mr. Brooks, two specimens of pound pear, one picked 
from the tree October 1st, 1873, and the other fresh. 
The Vice-President stated that General Cobb had signified 
his intention of depositing in the Museum of the Academy, the 
articles found in the shell mound at Saucelito. 
Dr. Kellogg exhibited plants, and read a paper on California 
and Colorado Loco Poisons. 
California and Colorado ‘‘Loco’”’? Poisons. 
BY DR. A. KELLOGG. 
Dr. Kellogg stated that very many thousands of horses, cattle and sheep 
had been poisoned by plants, exhibited and accompanied by sketches, called 
the Rattle Weed, Pompous Pea, Pop Pea, or Menzies’ milk, Vetch, (Astrag- 
alus Menziesii, Gray) of the vicinity of San Francisco, and also quite wide- 
spread over the State. The fact had been known to himself and to the public 
for the last ten or fifteen years. How long it has been known to the native 
Californian he was unable to say, but reiterated experience has taught sad 
lessons to independent observers everywhere. To some, however, the cause 
of their misfortune still remained a mystery. He had reason to know that 
there are also other similar causes, of which more would be said hereafter. 
The subject had been frequently brought before the Academy, but as no 
records had hitherto been made, he thought it proper to suggest that much 
useful information was often thus lost—was glad to add that no such fault 
could be attributed to Mr. Yale, the present indefatigable Secretary. 
This, and some allied forms, have been figured and published here; so that 
the public are supposed to be somewhat familiar with it. 
The plant has much the appearance of Bladder Senna. As no chemical an- 
alysis has been made, nor any carefully-noted experiments tried on animals, 
all we know is the serious results, often obscurely and imperfectly reported 
by the farmer, ranchero or herder, and the shepherd. 
Horses and cattle in this vicinity, he noticed, would shun it so long as the 
pasture was good, but as it became bare, and hunger impelled, they would 
eat it, and became narcotized or intoxicated, stagger, and are unsteady in all 
their movements, act strangely and stupidly, losing their good ‘‘ horse sense’”’ 
or common brute sagacity, in short, acting like a jfool; hence the Mexican 
name, ‘‘Loco,’’ given it. At length they become thinner, and cannot be re- 
stored to ‘‘condition.’’ The brutes get to like the weed more and more, be- 
ing apparently as infatuated as the Sandwich Islander is for his ‘‘Ava,’’ (Mac- 
ropiper methysticum,) in water, which demoralizes worse than ardent spirits, or 
the drunkard for his bottle. If only slightly ‘‘locoed,’’ the animal, to a great 
extent, becomes unfit for uses, except the simplest kind, being unreli- 
