292 , ANTIQUITIES 



vailing 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 quan- 

 tity. 



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 mortification to see 

 nine young steers or bullocks of his own all lying dead in an 

 heap from browzing a little on an hedge of yew in an old 

 garden into which they had broken in snowy w^eather. Even 

 the clippings of a yew-hedge have destroyed a whole dairy of 

 cows when thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet sheep 

 and turkies, and, as park-keepers say, deer, will crop these 

 trees with impunity. 



Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of yew, 

 while green, are not noxious; and that they will kill only 

 when dead and withered, by lacerating the stomach : but to 

 this assertion we cannot by any means assent, because, among 

 the number of cattle that we have known fall victims to this 

 deadly food, not one has been found, when it was opened, but 

 had a lump of green yew in it's paunch. True it is, that yew- 

 trees stand for twenty years or more in a field, and no bad 

 consequences ensue : but at some time or other cattle, either 

 from wantonness when full, or from hunger when empty, 

 (from both which circumstances we have seen them perish) 

 will be meddling, to their certain destruction ; the yew seems 

 to be a very improper tree for a pasture-field *. 

 * [The berries of the yew are perfectly innocuous ; and doubtless the 



