188 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



quarters, and if they attempt to run they fall down ; and that the 

 effect was permanent, as cattle I saw in that condition had been 

 so for over a year. It does not seem to affect them adversely 

 otherwise, provided they are taken away in time, as those seen 

 were in fair condition, but they can be picked out from the others 

 directly by noticing the way in which they walk, consequently 

 where the palms are plentiful fences have to be erected round them 

 to keep the cattle away. The natives often use the nut and 

 centre of the palm when crushed up as food, and it has the 

 appearance of arrowroot, but they expose it to the air and wash 

 it in several changes of water. 



There are two other poisonous plants in this part of Western 

 Australia, and large tracts of country are consequently of no use for 

 stock until the plant has been eradicated, which is often a some- 

 what expensive undertaking, especially as the country is so poor 

 that it takes a good many acres to keep one sheep. One is locally 

 called the Box Poison, Oxylohium parviflorum, because it is 

 generally found in country where Box or White Eucalyptus trees 

 grow, and the other is called York Road Poison, Gastrolohium 

 calycinum ; both are small shrubs, bearing a pea-like flower. 

 The effect on stock is very similar to that of the well-known 

 Darling Pea. 



In the scrub-covered country there is sometimes a little thin 

 grass in the spring of the year, but it soon dries up, and then the 

 stock have to feed entirely on shrubs, which accounts for their 

 eating the poisonous ones. The Brush Bronze-wing Pigeons often 

 feed on the seeds, with apparently no bad effect ; but a well-known 

 local sportsman told me that on one occasion when cleaning a 

 pigeon he had shot he threw the intestines away, they being full 

 of the seeds of the York Road Poison Plant ; his retriever, before 

 he could stop him, ate them, and died under twenty minutes, which 

 shows that the seeds must be a strong poison. It apparently also 

 affects human beings if they eat the seeds, and I heard of several 

 accidents that were attributed to that cause. 



One of the commonest shrubs is the Banksia, of which there 

 are several varieties ; of these Banksia grandis attracts the most 

 attention, with its large flower-cones. I noticed near the Serpen- 

 tine River four kinds growing within an area of a quarter of an 

 acre. Some of the flower-cones are large and striking, others again 

 much smaller, and one variety with a small prickly leaf has 

 hardly any cone. These trees have thin foliage and give very 

 little shade, but the same rem^k applies to most Western Aus- 

 tralian shrubs. Among the various kinds of eucalyptus trees 

 none is more striking in its way than the locally-called Gimblet- 

 wood. Eucalyptus saluhris. They only grow in certain localities, 

 and then the country is mostly occupied by them ; they are small, 

 averaging about So feet high, with comparatively thin trunks ; 



