RAT-POISONING PLANT.
Because most rat- poisons also kill other animals, and even humans through accident, the United States biological survey has been experimenting with a vegeab'le poison which is said to be fatal to rats and mice, but is virtually harmless to other living creatures. • The plant from which the poison is obtained is the " se'a, onion," belonging to the lily family, and also known as the red squill. It grows wild on the hills bordering the Mediterranean, the onion-like bulbs sometimes attaining a weight of ten or fifteen pounds: Ono grain of the powder from the dried bulb will kill a large rat. White squill is. familiar in medicine, being useful as a, heart tonic and emetic. Red squill has the same properties, but also contains a poisonous element not yet isolated. If swallowed in any quantity by a person or domestic animal, the red squill causes vomiting, which is one reason why it' does no harm, but, oddly enough, rats and mice cannot thus eject the material, and thus the poison, so deadly to them, kills -them quickly.
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New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20922, 11 July 1931, Page 7 (Supplement)
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180RAT-POISONING PLANT. New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20922, 11 July 1931, Page 7 (Supplement)
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