Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/229

Rh eat everything they could reach, even the tall hemlock stalks. Notwithstanding what Gilbert White says (vide p. 177), it is quite a mistake to suppose that deer and sheep can do so without being poisoned. A friend of mine lost, I think, twenty-five ewes from eating the clippings of a yew hedge, aud I have heard of certainly more than one instance of deer being poisoned from the same cause. It always seemed to me extraordinary that goats, which, through the antelopes, are perhaps more nearly allied to deer than to sheep (both of which, however, suffer), should be able to eat such a dangerous poison with impunity; but I remember a friend telling me that a species of goat in the Jardin des Plantes once ate all the tobacco in his tobacco-pouch! Two years ago some young friends of mine tied their donkey to one of my yew trees, and it ate a few twigs before I could get to move it, and died in less than three hours. In all cases of vew-poisoning that have come to my knowledge the tree was the common yew, Taxus baccata.— (Thruxton).

—Having had occasion lately to go carefully over the old ' Statistical Account of Scotland,' and extract all therein of interest relating to mammals and birds, I find that goats seem to be proof against snake-bites', according to the reverend author of the " Statistical Account of the Parish of Kirkmichael, in Banff," the Rev. John Grant. I do not find any reference to the fact of goats eating yew trees or yew-tree leaves or berries (vide anteá, p. 177). The passage, which occurs in vol. xii. (1794), p. 449, runs thus:—"Goats eat serpents without any injury from their bites. Hence the Gaelic proverb, 'Cleas-na gooiths githeadh na nathrac '—i.e., 'Like the goat eating the serpents.' "If this indeed be the case, it may be worthy of the attention of those who own islands infested with adders, such as some of the islands on our Scotch fresh-water lochs, on some of which I am informed over one hundred "serpents" are sometimes killed in one season.— (Dunipace House, Larbert, N. B.)

—In my notice of the Beech Martin in Cornwall, in the April number of ' The Zoologist,' p. 127, twentieth line, and the last word of the line, for "lose" read "love."— (Penzance).

.— On the 8th, 9th and 10th of May Porpoises were observed in the Thames, especially below Greenhithe. On the 11th, about half-past six o'clock, several were seen between Waterloo and Cbaring Cross Bridges, disporting themselves in the river. Two of them were swimming near the Thames Police river-station, Waterloo Pier. They were going with the flood-tide, and frequently rose to the surface of the water for air. Porpoises had not been seen as far as Westminster Bridge for two