The Colfax chronicle., 1904-06-04
DETECT POISONOUS WEEDS
Acute Sense of Smell in Animals Pro-
tects Them from Ncxious
Vegetable Growths.

The sense by which animals detect the
presence of poison is mainly that OF
smell. They seem to have very littls
sense of taste upon the palate. But car
nivorous animals have kind of half
| way" sense between taste and stomach
ache which very soon tells them when
they have taken poison or anything
likely to disagree with them, and ma
ture has kindly arranged that they can
get rid of it by the throat with very
great ease. An extraordinary instance
of this was quoted in the Country Gen
tleman recently. A Scotch keeper had
retriever which he had taught to fetch
any object which he left behind. One
day on the moors in the spring he found
thathe had left his knife at place where
he had been sitting no great way down
the hill, and sent the dog to fetch it. The
log galloped back to the place, and,
finding the knife, concluded that that
was what he was to fetch, and picked it
up.
So much at least seems certain from
the sequel, for when the dog arrived he
had not got the knife, and also looked
somewhat shamefaeed. The keeper
tried to send him back again, but he
would not 60 He went back himself,
.aking the dog with him. No knife was
there, and it was certain that had il
been dropped the dog would have picked
it up. 1t then flashed across his mind
IA ha IN, MI -,
the object in his mouth, had swallowed
the knife. Unfortunately, as it appar-
emily was not uncomfortable, the re-
triever showed no signs of wishing to dc
other than digest it, which, as it was a
valuable dog, the keeper was most un-
willing to risk. So took handful oil
salt, clapped it into the dogs mouth, and
held it tight for a minute-and after one
or two coughs the knife made its ap-
pearance. The dog was, of course, try
ing to get rid of the salt, not of the
knife.
Wolves. tigers, leopards and other car
nivora are difficult to poison because OF
he power which they have of rapidly
getting rid of the drug Lions, on the
other hand, are very frequently poi
soned, as they eat voraciously and
quickly, more like dog than any other
large felidae. 1t is said that a good
many lion skins, especially those
brought back by foreign counts and
others from Somaliland before the re-
grettable misunderstanding between
the whites and the blacks had begun in
that region famous for large game, were
obtained by the unsportsmanlike meth
od of poisoning carcasses and leaving
them for the lions to devour. Cattle,
which have no less than four stomachs,
are hopelessly poisoned IL once they
have swallowed dose, whether in a
toxic plant or otherwise. 1t is this curl
Gus usarrangementso of their interiors which
makes it such difficult matter to give
cattle medicine at ALL
In common with human beings, ami
mails seem to be affected by poison in
certain forms when in particular con-
dition of health. At other times they
can eat the same plant or shrub with i'm
punity. In certain states of health a
man can eat pork, Holsters, cookies,
scallops and other somewhat risky foods
bad effects. At other times the
same edibles would produce on him the
effect of ptomaine poisoning. Two per-
sons may eat of the same food at the
same time, and while one is perfectly
we'll afterward, the other may become
i'll. The curious cases of yew
poisoning amCng cattle or horses seem
10 be somewhat analogous. They will
sometimes browse on shoots of yew and
lake no harm whatever At other times
hey are obviously made very ill, or die
rom eating the leaves. They have been
found dead with the yew fresh and un-
iigested in their stomachs. Where poi
;onous plants are present in any great
numbers in herbage it seems quite i'm
possible to prevent cattle from eating
hem. The poison weld" of parts of the
rransvaal has a particularly bad repu-
alton caused by plants-one of which is
aid to be species of tulip-which
,omes into lesf in the spring.