The losses due to Poisonous Plants in Great Britain happily afford no comparison whatever with the immense losses sustained in some other countries, such as the cases of lupine poisoning mentioned at p. 29, but deaths are sufficiently numerous to make it certain that financial losses are in the aggregate very heavy. In this connection it may suffice to refer to the many cases of yew poisoning, the losses due to Umbellifers (pp. 36–42), and the instance reported in the _Staffordshire Weekly Sentinel_ in relation to meadow saffron and water hemlock (p. 80). Further, it appears to be extremely likely that many losses due to unascertained causes are really due to plant poisoning. For this reason veterinary surgeons will be well advised always to consider this possibility and, if need be, to obtain the services of a trained botanist to survey the farm or field involved, with the object of deciding whether poisonous plants are present. =Circumstances in which Poisoning occurs.= It may be assumed that many plants are to a considerable extent protected from animals by the fact that they have an unpleasant odour, are acrid or bitter to the taste, or are actually toxic in character, just as others assume such protective devices as spines. In a state of nature animals appear to avoid instinctively such plants as are toxic or “unwholesome,” and to be less readily poisoned than are domesticated animals living under artificial conditions. Indeed, it has been remarked that farm stock reared in a locality where certain poisonous plants abound are much less likely to be injured by these plants than animals imported from a district where they do not occur. The individuality of stock is also a factor which may be responsible for poisoning, some animals having what may be described as a depraved appetite for unusual and unappetising food plants. It would appear that animals are often tempted to eat dark-green plants of luxuriant growth which are soft and succulent. This is especially true when the plants are young and tender, particularly as regards sheep, which, however, usually avoid tall, old rank-growing and coarse herbage—unless absolutely pressed by hunger. Cattle, however, are not so particular, and will commonly eat large coarse-growing plants.