I920. 



Moffat. — Notes on Ginanthe crocaia. 



15 



Meanwhile, as the cows appeared none the worse, and 

 most of the Dropwort was already eaten, I saw no use 

 in disturbing them from their enjoyment of the remainder. 

 On the next day I again saw several of them (including 

 the oldest cow in the herd) feeding on the same plant, 

 and I believe they all took turns at it. The summer 

 passed, and no harm befel any of the animals. 



Suspecting, from what I had seen, that the poisonous 

 properties of (Enanthe crocata had been exaggerated, I wrote 

 on the subject to Mr. R. J. Moss, who at once very obligingly 

 sent me his Analyst's Report to the Royal Dublin Society 

 for the previous year (1917), showing that in that year 

 the deaths through poison of four cows in an Irish locality 

 (not named) had been traced by him to this Water-Drop- 

 wort, the roots of which were found in their stomachs. 

 Mr. Moss, however, pointed out that as these cows had eaten 

 the roots of the plant — apparently torn up by a flood in 

 the river — their fate left it still an open question whether 

 the facts reported by me from Co. Wexford did not prove 

 the green parts to be harmless. " Possibly," he added, 

 " the fact that these green parts were eaten by the cattle 

 when they had abundance of other food in their stomachs 

 accounts for the apparently harmless character of the 

 foliage." As the field in which the cattle were grazing 

 had been meadow the year, before, and as the summer 

 of 1 91 8 was one of exceptional forwardness as regards all 

 sorts of vegetation, this last suggestion was certainly very 

 well-timed and important — demanding fresh observation 

 of the same plant in the same locality under different 

 seasonal conditions. 



In the summer of 1919 different contiitions prevailed, 

 the season being harsh, and all growth exceptionally back- 

 ward. The land, too, had changed hands, and a different 

 herd of cattle, practically strangers to the locality, were 

 in possession of the field where I had seen the CEnanthe 

 eaten down the year before. But the only difference that 

 I could discover in the conduct of the cows to the QEnanthe 

 was that they attacked it earlier in the backward season 

 of 1919 than their predecessors had done in the forward 

 season of 1918. On the afternoon of the 3rd of May I found 



