1 48 
Editorial. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\      Mar  ob,  1899. 
well  known  to  be  immune  to  the  poison  of  rattlesnake.  Hyoscyamus,  while  it 
is  deadly  to  man,  monkeys,  deer,  rodents  and  birds,  is  harmless  to  horses,  goats, 
sheep  and  domestic  horned  animals.  Morphine,  is  harmless  to  goats,  sheep, 
antelopes  and  other  animals.  These  animals  can  tolerate  as  much  as  2  to  2^ 
grains  of  morphine  to  the  pound  weight  of  individual. 
In  a  recent  issue  of  the  Scientific  American  is  contained  a  letter  from  Nature 
in  which  the  correspondent  observed  a  number  of  thrushes  feeding  on  the  ber- 
ries of  Pyrus  aucuparia  and  that  the  ground  was  covered  with  ejected  seeds  and 
skins  of  the  fruit.  He  also  noted  that  while  the  pulp  had  disappeared,  the  skins 
were  as  bright  as  ever,  showing  that  they  could  not  have  passed  through  the 
alimentary  canal.  The  excessive  drought,  by  decreasing  the  supply  of  their 
ordinary  food,  was  evidently  the  cause  of  the  birds  taking  the  berries  at  such  an 
early  period  in  September.  The  same  correspondent  observed  a  similar  case  in 
the  fruit  of  the  yew.  Another  writer  observed  thrushes  stupefied  from  eating  the 
berries  of  Daphne  Mezereum,  but  in  this  case  there  is  little  question  but  that  the 
seeds  were  ejected.  Another  writer  found  that  pheasants  were  killed  by  eating 
the  leaves  of  the  yew  tree,  and  similar  instances  are  recorded.  Everyone  is 
familiar  with  the  manner  in  which  owls  disgorge  the  fur  and  bones  of  mice 
and  the  skulls  of  small  birds— a  habit  which  is  shared  by  all  the  raptorial 
birds.  The  habit  of  ejecting  the  indigestible  and  poisonous  parts  of  foods 
by  birds  is  an  interesting  subject  for  observation  and  experiment. 
A  few  years  ago  a  short  article  appeared  in  the  Bulletin  of  Pharmacy  (1891, 
p.  116),  by  Frank  Nabers,  on  "  A  New  Use  for  Strychnine."  The  writer  states 
that  "in  certain  districts  of  the  country,  especially  the  mountainous  parts  of 
the  Southern  States,  farmers  find  it  almost  impossible  to  successfully  raise 
poultry,  on  account  of  the  depredations  of  hawks.  When  the  chickens  have 
reached  that  very  toothsome  age  of  '  spring, '  the  hawks,  in  spite  of  the  vigilance 
of  the  farmers,  succeed  in  carrying  them  off,  to  such  an  alarming  extent,  that 
the  poor  farmers,  in  their  desperation,  are  willing  to  resort  to  any  device  which 
will  rid  them  of  the  bold  marauders.  The  plan  which  they  have  adopted  is  as 
follows,  and  a  unique  one  it  certainly  is:  A  quantity  of  '  nux  vomiky  buttons  ' 
are  procured  and  powdered  about  as  fine  as  ordinary  corn  meal.  Avery  gener- 
ous supply  of  this  unpalatable  meal  is  added  to  the  chickens'  food,  and  as  the 
chicken  is  a  bird  which  digests  its  food  entirely  by  mechanical  means,  gravel, 
sand,  etc.,  it  is  not  affected  at  all  by  the  strychnine,  which  is  practically  insolu- 
ble in  water  (solubility  being  about  1-36,000)  and  does  not  act  locally,  but  only 
by  absorption,  thus  large  quantities  can  be  given  the  chickens  with  impunity, 
and  still  not  interfere  with  their  use  as  an  article  of  food  for  man,  as  the  strych- 
nine remains  undissolved  in  the  entrails.  But  when  the  unsuspecting  hawk 
takes  one  of  these  doctored  fowls  to  his  lofty  home,  he  is  seized  with  an  attack 
of  indigestion,  or  rather  digestion  of  strychnine,  afcer  eating  his  stolen  meal, 
from  which  he  never  recovers.  For  the  hawk  is  a  carnivorous  bird,  hence  its 
digestion  is  a  chemical  one  instead  of  mechanical,  and  as  the  entrails  are  to  him 
the  daintiest  portion,  he  gets  into  his  stomach  the  greater  part  of  the  undis- 
solved drug,  which  is  acted  upon  by  digestive  fluids  present  in  the  stomach, 
forming  soluble  compounds,  which,  being  absorbed,  result  fatally." 
This  article  interested  the  present  Editor  of  the  American  Journal  of 
Pharmacy  to  the  extent  of  performing  some  experiments  a  few  years  ago. 
A  small  chicken,  weighing  about  three-quarters  of  a  pound,  was  isolated  and 
