ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 253 



bore great crops of berries. By the high winds usually pre- 

 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 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 cer- 

 tain death to horses and cows, and that in a few minutes. A 

 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 a heap 

 from browsing a little on a hedge of yew in an old garden, into 

 which they had broken in snowy weather. Even the clippings 

 of a yew-hedge have destroyed a whole dairy of cows, when 

 thrown inadvertently into a yard. And yet sheep and tur- 

 keys 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 its paunch. True it is, that yew-trees 

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

 quences 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 med- 

 dling, to their certain destruction ; the yew seems to be a very 

 improper tree for a pasture-field. 



Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what period 

 this tree first obtained a place in church-yards. A statute passed 



