“I think very few if any animals eat the loco at first from choice; but as it resists the drought until other food is scarce they are first starved to it, and after eating it a short time appear to prefer it to anything else. Cows are poisoned by it as well as horses, but it takes more of it to affect them. It is also said to poison sheep. As I have seen its actions on the horse, the first symptom apparently is hallucination. When led or ridden up to some little obstruction, such as a bar or rail lying in the road, he stops short, and if urged, leaps as though it were four feet high. Next he is seized with fits of mania in which he is quite uncontrollable and sometimes dangerous. He rears, sometimes even falling backwards, runs or gives several successive leaps forward, and generally falls. His eyes are rolled upward until only the white can be seen, which is strongly injected and as he sees nothing, is as apt to leap against a wall or a man, as in any other direction. Anything which excites him appears to induce the fits, which, I think, are more apt to occur in crossing water than elsewhere, and the animal sometimes falls so exhausted as to drown in water not over two feet deep. He loses flesh from the first and sometimes presents the appearance of a walking skeleton. In the next and last stage he only goes from the loco to water and back, his gait is feeble and uncertain, his eyes are sunken and have a flat, glassy look, and his coat is rough and lustreless. In general the animal appears to perish from starvation and consequent excitement of the nervous system, but sometimes appears to suffer acute pain, causing him to expend his strength in running wildly from place to place, pausing and rolling, until he falls and dies in a few minutes.” (O. B. Ormsby, Report Dept. of Agriculture, 1874.) “Animals are not fond of it at first, or don’t seem to be, but after they get accustomed to the taste they are crazy for it and will eat little or nothing else when loco can be had. There seems to be little or no nutrition in it as the animal invariably loses flesh and spirit. Even after eating of it they may live for years, if kept entirely out of its reach, but if not, they almost invariably eat of it until they die.” (Mrs. T. S. Whipple, San Luis, Cal. Report Dept. of Agriculture, 1874). “Cattle, after having eaten it,” Oxytropis Lamberti, “may linger many months, or for a year or two, but invariably die at last from the effects of it. The animal does not lose flesh apparently, but totters on its limbs and becomes crazy. The sight becomes affected so that the animal has no knowledge of distance, but will make an effort to step over a stream or an obstacle while at a distance off, yet will plunge into it or walk up against it on arriving at it.” (Dr. Moffat, U. S. Army.)