ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 299 



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 

 may be deemed an antiquity : the body is squat, short, and thick, 

 and measures twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting an 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 church-yards of this neighbour- 

 hood 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 prevailing 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 certain death to 

 horses and cows, and that in a few minutes. An 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 



* This is represented in the front of the vignette which heads Letter III., it is still a 

 striking object, and now measures twenty-three feet in girth. 



