APPENDIX. 6 93 



the notes or pafiages may be altered almoft at 

 pleafure. 



I tried once an experiment, which might indeed 

 have poflibly made fome ^iteration in the tone of a 

 bird, from what it might have been when the animal 

 was at its full growth, by procuring an operator 

 who caponifed a young blackbird of about fix 

 weeks old ; as it died, however, foon afterwards, 

 and I have never repeated the experiment, I can 

 only conjecture with regard to what might have 

 been the confequences of it. 



Both * Pliny and the London poulterers agree that 

 a capon does not crow, which I mould conceive 

 to arife from the mulcles of the larynx never ac- 

 quiring the proper degree of flrength, which feems 

 to be requifite to the finging of a bird, from Mr. 

 Hunter's diiTections. 



But it will perhaps be afked, why this operation 

 mould not improve the notes of a nettling, as much 

 as it is fuppoied to contribute to the greater per- 

 fection of the human voice. 



To this I anfwer, that caftration by no means 

 infures any fuch confequence; for the voices of 

 much the greater part of Italian eunuchs are fo in- 

 different, that they have no means of procuring 

 a livelihood but by copying mulic, and this is 

 one of the reafons why fo few compofuions are 



* Lib. X. c. 21. 



Z z 2 pubiifhed 



