occurrence of poisoning. Also the half-dried leaves would be, cœteris paribus, more potent than the fresh.
"Further and extended chemical researches, in conjunction with physiological experiments, are necessary to clear up the matter.
"The principle having a specific uterine action is possibly not the same as that which causes death."
This poison, if taken in sufficient quantity, is deadly to man, horses, asses, sheep, cattle, pigs, pheasants, and possibly other animals, but under ordinary circumstances small quantities of the leaves may be and are habitually eaten by live-stock without apparent injury, whilst it seems proved that the wood of the yew may be used for water vessels and for baths, as in Japan, without any deleterious effects.
Sargent, Silva of North America, vol. x., 63, says "no cases of poisoning by Taxus in North America appear to be recorded"; and Brandis, Forest Flora of British India, p. 541, says that "in India domestic animals are said to browse upon T. baccata without experiencing any bad effects."
With regard to the danger of allowing this tree to grow in hedges and fields where stock are pastured, there seems to be abundant evidence, which is well summarised by Mr. E.P. Squarey, and which my own experience entirely confirms, that though animals which have been bred and fed in places where they have access to yew are more or less immune, probably because they never eat it in sufficient quantity to do harm, yet that animals freshly turned into such places when hungry, or in winter and spring when there is little grass, are liable to die from eating it, and that fatal effects most commonly ensue when loppings or partially withered branches and leaves are eaten.
It has been held in more than one case that landowners, and others responsible for keeping up fences, who allow yew trees to remain insufficiently fenced, are liable to an action for damages if another person's cattle from adjoining land eat the branches and die.
With regard to the danger of yew trees in game coverts we have little exact knowledge, but in certain cases there seems to be evidence of its being poisonous to pheasants, and the following passage, which was communicated by Sir William ffolkes, Bart., of Hillington Hall, Norfolk, to the editor of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1892, p. 698, is worth quoting in full.
"Some years ago, when shooting through the coverts here the second time, we found about fifteen carcasses of pheasants under some yew trees. These could not have been overlooked the first time in picking up, as there was no stand anywhere near this place where so many pheasants could have been shot. My keeper informs me that it is after the pheasants have been disturbed by shooting that they take to perching in the yew trees. This may or may not be so, but at any rate it appears that, when they take to perching in these trees, they are apt to eat a few of the leaves. We now always drive them off the yew trees when they go to perch at night. I enclose some of the yew which poisoned the pheasants, and would like to add that never before this year have
