OCCASIONAL NOTES. 207 
eat everything they could reach, even the tall hemlock stalks. Notwith- 
standing what Gilbert White says (vide p. 177), it is quite a mistake 
to suppose that deer and sheep can do so without being poisoned. A 
friend of mine lost, I think, twenty-five ewes from eating the clippings of 
a yew hedge, and I have heard of certainly more than one instance of deer 
being poisoned from the same cause. It always seemed to me extraordinary 
that goats, which, through the antelopes, are perhaps more nearly allied to 
deer than to sheep (both of which, however, suffer), should be able to eat 
such a dangerous poison with impunity; but I remember a friend telling 
me that a species of goat iu the Jardin des Plantes once ate all the 
tobacco in his tobacco-pouch! Two years ago some young friends of mine 
tied their donkey to one of my yew trees, and it ate a few twigs before 
I could get to move it, and died in less than three hours. In all cases of 
yew-poisoning that have come to my knowledge the tree was the common 
yew, Taxus baccata—Henry Reexs (Thruxton). 
Goats EATING SERPENTS wiTH Iwpunrry.—Having had occasion lately 
to go carefully over the old ‘ Statistical Account of Scotland,’ and extract all 
therein of interest relating t0 mammals and birds, I find that goats seem 
to be proof against snake-bites, according to the reverend author of the 
“ Statistical Account of the Parish of Kirkmichael, in Banff,” the Rev. John 
Grant. I do not find any reference to the fact of goats eating yew trees or 
yew-tree leaves or berries (vide antea, p. 177). The passage, which occurs 
in vol. xii. (1794), p. 449, runs thus:—‘ Goats eat serpents without any 
injury from their bites. Hence the Gaelic proverb, ‘Cleas-na gooiths 
githeadh na nathrach ’—7. e., ‘ Like the goat eating the serpents.’” If this 
indeed be the case, it may be worthy of the attention of those who own 
islands infested with adders, such as some of the islands on our Scotch 
fresh-water lochs, on some of which I am informed over one hundred 
“serpents” are sometimes killed in one season.—J. A. Harvie Brown 
(Dunipace House, Larbert, N. B.) 
CorrEcTION oF AN Error.—In my notice of the Beech Martin in 
Cornwall, in the April number of ‘ The Zoologist,’ p. 127, twentieth line, 
and the last word of the line, for “lose” read ‘“love."—E. H. Ropp 
(Penzance). 
Porpoises 1n THe THames.—On the 8th, 9th and 10th of May Porpoises 
were observed in the Thames, especially below Greenhithe. On the 11th, 
about half-past six o'clock, several were seen between Waterloo and Charing 
Cross Bridges, disporting themselves in the river. Two of them were 
swimming near the Thames Police river-station, Waterloo Pier. They were 
going with the flood-tide, and frequently rose to the surface of the water for 
air, Porpoises had not been seen as far as Westminster Bridge for two 
