1803. Experiments of the Baron Mu?ichaujei¥, llj^'j 



©nee, and to clothe him, immediately, with as many flieerv (kinsr 

 as fliall fufTice for his complete invcftiture. 



After all, I niufl: confcfs that this mode of procuring an addi- 

 tional number of wool-bearing animals, is laboriou3, tedious, and 

 expenfive — not to mention the pain occafioned to the animals, in 

 the various flagcs of the procefs of flaying alive. Let us not, 

 however, defpair of fuccefs. And, here, let me beg the utmoft 

 attention of the reader, whilO: I flvall develope to him one of 

 thofe arcana natura^ through which, we may hope in time to be 

 extricated from thefe dilemmas! 



You are all, no doubt, acquainted with the celebrated Buffon 

 —--hcy who, par excellence, has been defigned Natiire^s oivn hiter- 

 preter — /v, who, defpifing the tetlimomy of his own neat-herd, 

 in proof of the negative (at all times To very difficult to eftablifli), 

 and trufting rather to his own reafoning, from the known 

 analogies of nature — has eflablifhed, by mere dint of argument, 

 a priori J the fa£t, that cur cows annually JJjtd their horns ^ like the 

 deer. — This fame BulTon, I fay, has alfo eftablifiied another faft, 

 upon the analogy of which we may depend, in believing, that, 

 after a certain period, the neceflity of the Talicotian procefs 

 to produce wool-bearing horfes will be altogether fuperfeded. 

 Buffon has fomewhere aiTured us, that, in propagating conti- 

 nually from a race of fetting dogs, w^iofe tails are uniformly 

 docked, a race is at laft produced with tails naturally of the 

 cxa£t length required — Nature apparently becoming pettiih, 

 and at length refufing to exhauft her powers unneceiTarily, in 

 producing a redundance, which fhe fees uniformly rejected as 

 a fuperiluity. There exifls, indeed, in Northumberland, a race 

 of taillefs ftiephcrds dogs, (defigned felf-tailed), and which I, 

 Baron Munchaufen, afl'ert to have been produced in this felf-fame 

 identical manner. Is it not, then, demonftrably probable, at the 

 lead, that, if we continue to propagate from a race cf horfes, 

 continually converted into viool-bearers by the Talicotian prac- 

 tice, the renitency of nature may be at laft overcome by the 

 pertinacity of man, and that flie ihall at length confent, of her 

 own fpontaniety, to produce a race of horfes ready wool-clothed 

 to our hand ? 



It has been furmifed, that feveral readers of my adventures 

 have called in queftion the truth of a ftory I there relate, cf an 

 'wolf having attacked^ from behind, the horfe which I drove in 

 harnefs, eating up before him, all ivithin the Jhin, till he found 

 himfelf completely enveloped in it, and fixed in the harnefs^ exuEily 

 in my horfe" s place ; and of my ccfUinning to drive him to the end of 

 the fi age, before 1 perceived the cha?ige cf (\\x\ pro quo luhich had 

 keen put upon ni^. This, I indceil acknpwledje, might have 



beca 



