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Poison we know perhaps best in the plant world, whence comes, for
example, strychnine. The deadly nightshade, a common weed, is another
well-known poison plant. In the animal world we know poison best as
something that is injected into the body by stings of bees, bites
of spiders, the bites of insects, and even bites of shrews. In
addition some animals having irritating, bad-tasting, or poisonous
secretions which presumably protect the possessor from predators.
This has received most attention in the insect world, the bad-tasting
grasshoppers being examples. Toads have an acrid secretion from their
skins which deters many would-be toad eaters, and pickerel frogs have
somewhat the same thing.
The following three birds, which are recorded as having poisonous
flesh, are, strangely enough, all members of groups ordinarily
considered good table birds. Further, it seems the poisonous properties
of their flesh are not constant, but apparently depend on what they
have been eating.
The ruffed grouse of the United States is regarded by many as the
finest of upland game birds and favored by the epicure. However,
Mr. E. H. Forbush, in his monumental _Birds of Massachusetts and
Other New England States_, gives accounts to show that in winter the
ruffed grouse is known to eat leaves of laurel, which have poisonous
properties, and that there are stories of serious poisoning resulting
from eating the flesh of the birds. Such poisoning, Forbush points out,
seems to have taken place only long ago and only by winter-taken birds.
Perhaps now that it is illegal to shoot grouse in the winter when they
may have been feeding on laurel, such poisoning does not occur. This
seems an additional reason for obeying the game laws.
Pigeons in the tropics are abundant both as to individuals and as to
species and many are favored as food. However, Messrs. D. L. Serventy
and H. M. Mitchell, in their recent volume on the birds of Western
Australia, report that bronze-wing pigeons of two species are given to
feeding on the seeds of the box-poison plant, and when they have been
feeding on these seeds their entrails and bones, but not the flesh, are
poisonous to dogs and cats. The effects of eating this poison seems to
be that the dogs and cats have fits, become mad, bite at anyone within
reach, and finally die in convulsions.
During Colonel Meinertzhagen's study of the birds of Mauritius he found
that one of the pigeons there had a bad reputation from a culinary
point of view. Reports have it that some of the people who have eaten
the flesh of this pigeon suffered from extreme lassitude, while others
reported the effects as convulsions. Strangely some of the people who
reported sickness from eating this pigeon say it tastes well, while
others who have eaten it without ill effects say that the flesh is
bitter.