170 THE ANTIQUITIES [LETT. 



LETTER V. 



IN the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect 

 bespeaks it to be of a great age : it seems to have seen several 

 centuries, and is probably coeval with the church, and therefore 

 maybe deemed an antiquity: the body is squat, short, and 

 thick, and measures twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting a 

 head of suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male tree, which 

 in the spring sheds clouds of dust, and fills the atmosphere 

 around with its farina. 



As far as we have been able to observe, the males of this 

 species become much larger than the females ; and it has so 

 fallen out that most of the yew-trees in the churchyards of this 

 neighbourhood are males: but this must have been matter of 

 mere accident, since men, when they first planted yews, little 

 dreamed that there were sexes in trees. 



In a yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately grew 

 a middle-sized female tree of the same species, which commonly 

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

 ing 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 rnilch-cows 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 certain 

 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 browzing a 



