70 
The poets share the popular belief. Father Newman in a 
recently published poem, speaks of 
some dark, lonely, evil-natured yew, 
Whose poisonous fruit — so fabling poets speak— 
Beneath the moon’s pale gleam the midnight hag doth seek.* 
M. Mavine has found a poisonous alkaloid in the leaves 
and seed of the common yew (Taxus baccata ), which is 
named Taxine. It is nitrogenous, and evolves ammonia 
when ignited with freshly-ignited soda-lime. Taxine is 
present in greater quantities in the leaves than in the 
seeds . — (Science Gossip, 1877, p. 141.) 
It will be seen that there is considerable diversity in the 
evidence as to the reality of the poisonous qualities of the 
yew, both as to its leaves and berries. It seemed worth 
while to bring this fact out in the hope of inducing some 
chemist to turn his attention to a matter which still appears 
to invite definite and decisive investigation. We all know 
Pascal’s famous saying, that if Cleopatra’s nose had been an 
inch longer or shorter, the entire course of subsequent history 
might have been different. As a smaller example may be 
mentioned, that popular belief at least regards a childish feast 
on fatal yew leaves, as one of the main links in that chain of 
events which has given Lancashire the famous Jesuit College 
of Stonyhurst. 
# Lyrics of Light and Life, edited by F. G. Lee, second edition, 1878, p. 8. 
