532 ANTIQUITIES 



dead before the owner can be aware that any danger is 

 at hand : and the writer has been several times a sor- 

 rowful 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 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 turkeys, 

 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 ol 

 green yew in its 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 destruc- 

 tion ; 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 A. D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. 

 the title of which is " Ne rector arbores in cemeterio 

 prosternat." Now if it is recollected that we seldom 

 see any other very large or ancient tree in a churchyard 

 but yews, this statute must have principally related to 

 this species of tree ; and consequently their being planted 

 in churchyards is of much more ancient date than the 

 year 1307. 



As to the use of these trees, possibly the more re- 



