132 The Management and Treatment of the Horse, 



that are given them for food. Such is the instinct of the 

 horse, that if left to roam in the field, and that field is 

 overflowing with noxious herbs, he will refuse to eat 

 them. Although the horse will eat hemlock with 

 impunity, yet the common buttercups, R. Jiammula, R, 

 bulbus, R. sceleratus, R. acris, and R. arvensis, are all of 

 them injurious to the hungry horse, and many cases 

 occur of serious illness which cannot be accounted for in 

 any other way but from eating grass containing abund- 

 ance o± buttercup. It is a common practice with people 

 who have one or two horses and a lawn for them to give 

 their horses lawn-mowings to eat; and as most lawns are 

 mown by the machine, the sweet and good herbage 

 becomes inseparably mixed with that of the ranunculacce, 

 and is given to the horse when it is hungry, when it will 

 often eat it greedily, and in a short time alarming 

 symptoms are set up. Buttercup poisoning is well 

 known on the Continent, but happily it is not often 

 met with in England, unless under exceptional circum- 

 stances. On the Continent it occurs by the horse eating 

 the buttercup in the field, but in England it is never 

 found unless the horse has had an abundance of cut 

 grass given it when very hungry, after long journeys, or, 

 as I have said, had lawn-mowings given it, especially if 

 the season is dry, when the buttercup is much more 

 acrid. The species of this plant popularly known as 

 buttercup abounds everywhere in our pastures, and is so 

 inextricably mingled with the herbage in some places as 

 to make it appear doubtful Avhether it contains any 

 acridity or causes the least annoyance to cattle, which 

 must of necessity consume more or less of it while 



