r.12 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



full-grown earth-worms. This little fry issued into the world with 

 the true viper-spirit about them, showing great alertness as soon 

 as disengaged from the belly of the dam : they twisted and wrig- 

 gled about, and set themselves up, and gaped very wide when 

 touched with a stick, showing manifest tokens of menace and 

 defiance, though as yet they had no manner of fangs that we could 

 nnd, even with the help of our glasses. 



To a thinking mind nothing is more wonderful than that early 

 instinct which impresses young animals with a notion of the 

 situation of their natural weapons, and of using them properly 

 in their own defence, even before those weapons subsist or are 

 formed. Thus a young cock will spar at his adversary before his 

 spurs are grown ; and a calf or a lamb will push with their heads 

 before their horns are sprouted. In the same manner did these 

 young adders attempt to bite before their fangs were in being. 

 The dam however was furnished with very formidable ones, which 

 we lifted up (for they fold down when not used) and cut them oft 

 with the point of our scissors. 



There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever been 

 in the open air before ; and that they were taken in for refuge, 

 at the mouth of the dam, when she perceived that danger was 

 aoproaching ; because then probably we should have found them 

 somewhere in the neck, and not in the abdomen. 



LETTER XXXII. 



CASTRATION has a strange effect : it emasculates both man, beast, 

 and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of the other sex. 

 Thus eunuchs have smooth unmuscular arms, thighs and legs ; 

 and broad hips, and beardless chins, and squeaking voices. Gelt 

 stags and bucks have hornless heads, like hinds and does. Thus 

 wethers have small horns, like ewes ; and oxen large bent horns, 

 and hoarse voices when they low, like cows : for bulls have short 

 straight horns ; and though they mutter and grumble in a deep 



