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and other cattle by yew leaves. In the spring of last year a 
young horse came to an untimely end from the same cause. 
The poisonous qualities of the yew tree has in that district 
at least passed into a commonplace of agricultural belief. 
It then occurred to me that I had read something on the 
subject in our older botanical writers, and on turning up 
the fine old folio of Gerarde’s Herbal, enlarged by Johnson, 
and published 1636, I found this passage The yew tree, 
as Galen reporteth, is of a venomous quality, and against 
man’s nature. Dioscorides writeth, and generally all that 
heretofore have dealt in the faculty of herbes, that the yew 
tree is very venomous to be taken inwardly, and that if any 
doe sleepe under the shadow thereof it causeth sicknesse, 
and oftentimes death. Moreover, they say that the fruit 
thereof being eaten is not only dangerous and deadly unto 
man, but if birds doe eat thereof, it causeth them to cast 
their feathers, and many times to die. All of which I dare 
boldly affirme is altogether untrue ; for, when I was young, 
and went to schoole, divers of my schoole-fellows, and like- 
wise myself did eat our fills of the berries of this tree, and 
have not only slept under the shadow thereof, but among the 
branches also, without any hurt at all, and that not at one 
time, but many times.” He adds on the authority of 
Theophrastus that “ labouring beasts die, if they do eate of 
the leaves ; but, such cattell as chew their cud receive no 
hurt at all thereby. * * Pena and Lobel also observed 
that which our author here affirmes, and dayly experience 
shewes it to be true, that the yew tree in England is not 
poysonous, yet divers affirme, that in Province in France, 
and in most hot countries, it hath such a maligne quality, 
that it is not safe to sleepe or long to rest under the shadow 
thereof.”* 
A writer in Hardwicke’s Science Gossip, May, 1865, states 
that thirty or forty deer in the park of the Duke of Beaufort, 
* Gerarde’s Herbal, enlarged by Johnson, 1636, p. 1370. 
