The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

132 The Management and Treatment of the Horse,
that are given them for food. Such is the instinct of the
horse, that if left to roam in the field, and that field is
overflowing with noxious herbs, he will refuse to eat
them. Although the horse will eat hemlock with
impunity, yet the common buttercups, R. Jiammula, R,
bulbus, R. sceleratus, R. acris, and R. arvensis, are all of
them injurious to the hungry horse, and many cases
occur of serious illness which cannot be accounted for in
any other way but from eating grass containing abund-
ance o± buttercup. It is a common practice with people
who have one or two horses and a lawn for them to give
their horses lawn-mowings to eat; and as most lawns are
mown by the machine, the sweet and good herbage
becomes inseparably mixed with that of the ranunculacce,
and is given to the horse when it is hungry, when it will
often eat it greedily, and in a short time alarming
symptoms are set up. Buttercup poisoning is well
known on the Continent, but happily it is not often
met with in England, unless under exceptional circum-
stances. On the Continent it occurs by the horse eating
the buttercup in the field, but in England it is never
found unless the horse has had an abundance of cut
grass given it when very hungry, after long journeys, or,
as I have said, had lawn-mowings given it, especially if
the season is dry, when the buttercup is much more
acrid. The species of this plant popularly known as
buttercup abounds everywhere in our pastures, and is so
inextricably mingled with the herbage in some places as
to make it appear doubtful Avhether it contains any
acridity or causes the least annoyance to cattle, which
must of necessity consume more or less of it while