110 FOOTNOTES FROM 



of white filamentous lichen (Evemia prunastri), very 

 frequent upon pines and oaks, a kind of gum which was 

 extensively used in Glasgow during the French war, as an 

 efficient substitute for the expensive Gum Senegal, in 

 calico-printing. When it was the absurd fashion to wear 

 the hair whitened with powder, this same lichen was 

 sometimes pulverized and employed, on account of its 

 cheapness, instead of flour or starch. A species of yellow 

 shrubby lichen, like brass wire (Borrera flavicans), found 

 on apple-trees in the south of England, used to be em- 

 ployed in Norway in poisoning wolves, which were at 

 one time a dreadful scourge in the country, ranging the 

 gloomy pine forests in immense herds, committing fear- 

 ful havoc among the sheep-folds and cattle-sheds, and 

 when rendered desperate by hunger, even attacking tra- 

 velling parties and the houses of the inhabitants. Dead 

 carcases of sheep, stuffed with a mixture composed of 

 the powder of this lichen and pounded glass, were left 

 exposed in their favourite resorts to be devoured by these 

 ravenous animals, when it never failed to prove fatal. 

 This is the only lichen known to possess poisonous pro- 

 perties; but the deleterious action of the mixture em- 

 ployed, may have depended more upon the attrition of 

 the sharp surfaces of pounded glass, than upon the vege- 

 table powder. Chemists have detected oxalic acid in 

 several species of crustaceous lichens growing on the bark 

 of trees, and distinguished by an intensely bitter taste ; 

 and in one or two species in such abundance, that 100 

 parts yielded 18 of lime, combined with 29-4 of oxalic 

 acid. The oxalate of lime bears the same relation to 

 lichens as carbonate of lime to the corals, and phosphate 



