"""■FeK^'iso^'"' }      Ervum  Ervilia,  the  Bitter  Vetch.  95 
relating  to  the  proper  cooking  of  the  meal  was  raised  by  my  ingenious 
friend,  the  late  Alfred  Bird,  who  suggested  that  the  meal  being  mixed 
with  cold  water,  lumps  of  starchy  coagulate  were  formed,  which  were 
totally  indigestible,  and  so  caused  death  ;  whereas,  had  the  meal  been 
properly  cooked  with  hot  water,  it  would  have  been  soluble,  and  no 
harm  would  have  resulted.  In  this  view  he  was  followed  by  a  pro- 
fessor of  Materia  Medica  and  by  a  professional  chemist.  The  manifest 
effect  of  the  food  was  severe  vomiting,  followed  by  speedy  death.  The 
judge  delivered  an  elaborate  judgment,  in  which  he  said,  he  laid  no 
claim  to  practical  knowledge  in  feeding  pigs,  but  he  adopted  the  view, 
and  gave  a  verdict  for  the  defendant.  It  will  presently  be  seen  that 
this  view  was  in  the  direction  of  the  truth,  but  was  quite  erroneous. 
Being  interested  in  the  subject,  and  desirous  of  solving  the  obscurity 
in  which  it  was  left  by  the  trial,  I  procured  some  of  the  seeds  of  which 
the  so-called  pea  meal  was  made,  and  found  that  they  had  been  called 
Egyptian  peas,  but  that  they  were  really  very  much  smaller  than  peas, 
and  that  the  correct  name  was  Rovi  seed,  a  cargo  of  which  Ijiad  been 
imported  from  Turkey.  These  I  sowed  in  my  garden  ;  they  sprang  up, 
flowered  and  bore  fruit,  and  proved  to  be  the  Ervum  ervilia^  or  bitter 
vetch.  I  sent  a  specimen  to  Prof.  Oliver,  at  Kew,  who  confirmed  the 
name.  The  mystery  was  now  made  clear,  as  these  seeds  are  known 
to  be  poisonous. 
Since  that  period,  I  have  heard  of  several  cases  of  pigs  being  poisoned, 
but  could  not  obtain  the  seeds  of  which  the  meal  they  were  fed  upon 
was  made.  During  the  last  summer,  however,  a  number  of  pigs  were 
poisoned  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  and  on  examining  the  seed  I  found  it 
to  be  about  half  Rovi-seed  and  the  remainder  a  black  tare,  or  vetch,  a 
much  larger  seed.  It  therefore  seemed  to  me  desirable  that  a  state- 
ment of  these  facts  should  be  published  for  the  sake  of  the  pigs,  and, 
possibly,  for  that  of  men. 
The  seed  of  Ervum  ervilia  is  about  the  same  size,  and  almost 
exactly  the  same  rufous -brown  color  as  that  of  the  Egyptian  lentils 
{Ervum  lens)^  and  when  the  testa  is  removed  they  are  both  of  an  orange- 
pinkish  color,  but  the  former  is  not  so  bright  as  the  latter.  The  seeds 
of  E.  ervilia  are  not,  however,  lenticular,  but  are  obtusely  triangular, 
and  this  serves  to  distinguish  them  from  lentils,  for  which  popular  food 
they  might  be  an  unpleasant  substitute. 
Modern  writers  do  not  take  much  notice  of  E.  ervilia;  it  is  by  sev- 
