420 ANTIQUITIES 



LETTER V. 



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 there- 

 fore may be deemed an antiquity : the body is 

 squat, short, and thick, and measures [upwards of] 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 '.iround 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 com- 

 monly 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. 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 



