Colorado Plants Injurious to Livestock 5 
smallest snail will withstand more strychnine than an adult man. 
Many of the strongest cardiac poisons have no action whatsoever 
upon insects. Great care is necessary in thus reasoning from even 
the effects noted in experiments with warm blooded animals ap¬ 
proaching nearer to man. The rabbit can ‘take more morphine than 
can a man of fifty times the animals weight. Doses of lead, nicotin 
cytisin, etc., sufficient to fatally poison do not injure the goat. Amy- 
gdalin does not affect dogs, but it kills rabbits. The hedgehog takes, 
with apparent enjoyment, a dose of cantharides that would kill 
several persons under excruciating pain. The bite of the most ven¬ 
omous snake does not harm him; he can even accomodate no in¬ 
considerable quantity of hydrocyanic acid. Whereas the frog is 
extraordinarily susceptible to the digitalis poisons they have no ef¬ 
fect upon the toad.” 
Another factor that complicates the grazing of animals, on a 
range where there are poisonous plants, is the uncertaintv of their 
feeding habits; this is especially true of sheep. It is not an un¬ 
common experience to see sheep eating greedily of plants that they 
have not been seen to eat before and will not eat the dav or week 
following. This seemingly unaccountable appetite mav be mani¬ 
fested in eating either poisonous or forage plants and mav be true 
of the entire band or a few individuals. When a few individuals 
have been poisoned, it is safer to conclude that thev alone have been 
eating certain poisonous plants than it is to assume that they were 
the only ones that were susceptible. In most cases it will be found 
that a majority of the band will be eating largely of certain plants, 
and where the small species of larkspur and death camas are both 
growing they will eat largely of one or the other throughout the 
season. All things considered it is impossible to predict with any 
degree of certainty whether or not animals will eat of a particular 
poisonous plant if allowed to graze unmolested. 
PREVENTIVE MEASURES 
Much more can be accomplished in prevention of poisoning 
than in treatment of animals after they have been poisoned. This 
principle is generally recognized to be true in its application to all 
diseases, and is especially true in this instance, for the reason that 
under range conditions, horses and cattle, especially, are without 
an attendant and are often not seen for days or weeks at a time. 
Stockmen are advised to become familiar with the most com¬ 
mon poisonous plants, to know the season of the year or other con¬ 
ditions of poisoning, and to herd their animals away from danger¬ 
ous areas. At the same time there is some danger in herding ani¬ 
mals away from' dangerous areas, as many stockmen will testify. 
Many stockmen who have practiced herding animals from the worst 
poison weed ranges, have still suffered heavy losses, and claim to 
have a smaller loss when the animals are allowed to roam at will and 
exercise their instinct unmolested in the selection of forage. It is true 
