2 Introduction [ch. 



The losses due to Poisonous Plants in Great Britain happily 

 afford no comparison whatever with the immense losses sustained in 

 some other countries, such as the cases of lupine poisoning mentioned 

 at p. 29, but deaths are sufficiently numerous to make it certain that 

 financial losses are in the aggregate very heavy. In this connection 

 it may suffice to refer to the many cases of yew poisoning, the losses 

 due to Umbellifers (pp. 36-42), and the instance reported in the Stafford- 

 shire Weekly Sentinel in relation to meadow saffron and water hemlock 

 (p. 80). Further, it appears to be extremely Hkely that many losses 

 due to unascertained causes are really due to plant poisoning. For 

 this reason veterinary surgeons will be well advised always to consider 

 this possibility and, if need be, to obtain the services of a trained botanist 

 to survey the farm or field involved, with the object of deciding whether 

 poisonous plants are present. 



Circumstances in which Poisoning occurs. It may be assumed 

 that many plants are to a considerable extent protected from 

 animals by the fact that they have an unpleasant odour, are acrid or 

 bitter to the taste, or are actually toxic in character, just as others 

 assume such protective devices as spines. In a state of nature animals 

 appear to avoid instinctively such plants as are toxic or "unwholesome," 

 and to be less readily poisoned than are domesticated animals living 

 under artificial conditions. Indeed, it has been remarked that farm 

 stock reared in a locality where certain poisonous plants abound are 

 much less likely to be injured by these plants than animals imported 

 from a district where they do not occur. 



The individuality of stock is also a factor which may be responsible 

 for poisoning, some animals having what may be described as a depraved 

 appetite for unusual and unappetising food plants. It would appear 

 that animals are often tempted to eat dark-green plants of luxuriant 

 growth which are soft and succulent. This is especially true when the 

 plants are young and tender, particularly as regards sheep, which, 

 however, usually avoid tall, old rank-growing and coarse herbage — 

 unless absolutely pressed by hunger. Cattle, however, are not so par- 

 ticular, and will commonly eat large coarse-growing plants. 



Sheep have been observed to be particularly variable in their choice 

 of food plants, not only individually in the flock, but from day to day. 

 Chesnut and Wilcox remark ^ that "there seems to be no way of account- 

 ing for the appetite or taste of stock. This statement is perhaps 



^ "The Stock-Poisoning Plants of Montana," V. K. Chesnut and E. V. Wilcox. 

 Bui. No. 26, U.S. Dept. Agric, Div. Bot., 1901. 



