2 Introduction [CH. 
The losses due to Poisonous Plants in Great Britain happily 
afford no comparison whatever with the immense losses sustained in 
some other countries, such as the cases of lupine poisoning mentioned 
at p. 29, but deaths are sufficiently numerous to make it certain that 
financial losses are in the aggregate very heavy. In this connection 
it may suffice to refer to the many cases of yew poisoning, the losses 
due to Umbellifers (pp. 36-42), and the instance reported in the Stafford- 
shire Weekly Sentinel in relation to meadow saffron and water hemlock 
(p. 80). Further, it appears to be extremely likely that many losses 
due to unascertained causes are really due to plant poisoning. For 
this reason veterinary surgeons will be well advised always to consider 
this possibility and, if need be, to obtain the services of a trained botanist 
to survey the farm or field involved, with the object of deciding whether 
poisonous plants are present. 
Circumstances in which Poisoning occurs. It may be assumed 
that many plants are to a considerable extent protected from 
animals by the fact that they have an unpleasant odour, are acrid or 
bitter to the taste, or are actually toxic in character, just as others 
assume such protective devices as spines. In a state of nature animals 
appear to avoid instinctively such plants as are toxic or "unwholesome," 
and to be less readily poisoned than are domesticated animals living 
under artificial conditions. Indeed, it has been remarked that farm 
stock reared in a locality where certain poisonous plants abound are 
much less likely to be injured by these plants than animals imported 
from a district where they do not occur. 
The individuality of stock is also a factor which may be responsible 
for poisoning, some animals having what may be described as a depraved 
appetite for unusual and unappetising food plants. It would appear 
that animals are often tempted to eat dark-green plants of luxuriant 
growth which are soft and succulent. This is especially true when the 
plants are young and tender, particularly as regards sheep, which, 
however, usually avoid tall, old rank-growing and coarse herbage 
unless absolutely pressed by hunger. Cattle, however, are not so par- 
ticular, and will commonly eat large coarse-growing plants. 
Sheep have been observed to be particularly variable in their choice 
of food plants, not only individually in the flock, but from day to day. 
Chesnut and Wilcox remark l that " there seems to be no way of account- 
ing for the appetite or taste of stock. This statement is perhaps 
1 "The Stock-Poisoning Plants of Montana," V. K. Chesnut and E. V. Wilcox. 
Bui. No. 26, U.S. Dept. Agric., Div. Bot., 1901. 
