TN SUFFICIENT QUANTITIES TO PROVE POISONOUS? 189 
lias upon the tongue and mouth is considered, and which may be readily 
perceived by masticating a small portion of the recent plant. 
Formerly this ( It. hulbosus) and the ft. acris were used as vesicalories, 
being said to produce a quicker effect than cantharides, and never 
causing strangury. 
I find there is a case recorded of a horse being poisoned by some 
species of ranunculus, in the Veterinarian for 1840, page 478, but that 
it was so does not appear very clear to me. 
This is all the information l can give you respecting these plants. 
May I be permitted to ask (this being a subject I feel very great 
interest in, and being also anxious to gain all the knowledge I can, 
with a view of making my observations in your Journal, on the poi¬ 
sonous plants, as complete as possible), if there was any Colchicum 
autnmnale growing in the meadow from which the plant sent me was 
obtained ? 
I have inclosed another species of the ranunculus, found in the same 
meadow from which I obtained the R. bulbosus. This I believe to be 
confined to low and wet situations. 
Walker Watson. 
We are able to answer Mr. Watson’s inquiry, having 
ourselves put it to Mr. Wallis : the Colchicum Autumnale 
is not known to grow there. 
Much remains yet to be ascertained respecting the action 
of certain vegetables on the lower animals, when accidentally 
partaken of in seasons of scarcity, or otherwise. It is true 
that animals are endowed with instinct that rarely ever errs, so 
that they avoid those plants which are prejudicial to them; 
yet when pushed by hunger they have been know to eat 
them with greediness. Besides this, there are certain con¬ 
ditional states of the same plant in which its poisonous nature 
is not recognised by them. Thus we are told by Linnaeus 
that the cow-bane {cicala virosa) in the moist pastures of 
Sweden was often found to be productive of extensive disease 
among horned cattle until the fact was ascertained that when 
young the odour of the plant was so faint that its presence 
was not detected, they therefore ate it indiscriminately with 
other herbage. As the plant, however, acquires age, the 
smell emitted from it is so strong and offensive that the cows 
refuse it. Linnaeus suggested to the graziers to keep their 
cattle in the upland pastures until the cow-bane was fully 
grown, after which they might be safely driven to the low¬ 
lands. This expedient being adopted, the annual losses, 
which were before this immense, ceased from that period. 
We are further informed that while this plant is so poisonous 
to cattle, and also to man,—horses, sheep, and goats feed on 
it with impunity. How is this to be accounted for? 
