20 THE OX AND THE DAIRY. 



sweeping away the cattle of the district, and which he at once 

 traced to the long-leaved water hemlock. Scarcely, in fact, 

 had he crossed the river, and landed from his boat on the 

 meadow, before he felt convinced of the origin of the mis- 

 chief. This deadly plant grew there in abundance; and it 

 appeared that, as soon as the cattle left off their winter- 

 fodder, and returned to pasturage, they died swollen and con- 

 vulsed : as the summer came on the mortality decreased, and 

 still more so with the advance of autumn. " The least atten- 

 tion," says Linnaeus, "will convince us that brutes reject 

 whatever is hurtful to them, and distinguish poisonous plants 

 from salutary by natural instinct ; so that this plant is not 

 eaten by them in the summer and autumn, which is the 

 reason that, in those seasons, so few cattle die ; namely, such 

 only as either by accident, or pressed by extreme hunger, eat 

 of it. But when they are led into the pastures, in spring, 

 partly from their greediness after fresh herbs, and partly from 

 the emptiness and hunger they have undergone during a long 

 winter, they devour every green thing which comes in their 

 way. It happens, moreover, that herbs, at this time, are 

 small, and scarcely supply food in sufficient quantity. They 

 are, besides, more juicy, and covered with water, and smell 

 less strong, so that what is noxious is not easily discerned 

 from what is wholesome. I observe, likewise, that the radical 

 leaves were always bitter, the others not, which confirms what 

 I have just said. I saw this plant, in an adjoining meadow, 

 mowed along with grass for winter-fodder ; and therefore it is 

 not wonderful that some cattle, though but a few, should die 

 of it in winter. After I left Tornea, I saw no more of this 

 plant till I came to the vast meadows near Limmingen, where 

 it appeared along the road ; and when I got into the town, I 

 heard the same complaints as at Tornea of the annual loss of 

 cattle, with the same circumstances." 



Hunger will, indeed, often drive cattle to feed upon herbs 

 more or less unfitted by nature for them ; and it has been 

 remarked, that when they have suffered the ill effects of their 

 want of caution, they become more wary for the future, having 

 learned a lesson from experience. In the "Swedish Pan" 

 we are told, for example, that the cattle which feed in the 

 neighbourhood of Fahluna, where monkshood grows abund- 

 antly, generally leave this deadly plant untouched ; but that 

 cattle brought from a distant quarter, and introduced into the 

 same grounds, often venture to eat it, and, if too large a 



