THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



LETTER LXXIV. 

 TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINQTOX. 



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 tremendous tone, yet they low 

 in a shrill high key. Capons have small combs and gills, and 

 look pallid about the head, like pullets ; they also walk without 

 any parade, and hover over chickens like hens. 1 Barrow-hogs 

 have also small tusks like sows. 



Thus far it is plain that the deprivation of masculine vigour 

 puts a stop to the growth of those parts or appendages that are 

 looked upon as its insignia. But the ingenious Mr. Lisle, in 

 his book on husbandry, carries it much farther ; for he says 

 that the loss of those insignia alone has sometimes a strange 

 effect on the ability itself ; he had a boar so fierce and venereous, 

 that to prevent mischief, orders were given for his tusks to be 

 broken off. No sooner had the beast suffered this injury than his 

 powers forsook him, and he neglected those females to whom 

 before he was passionately attached, and from whom no fences 

 could restrain him. 



1 Reaumur, Mr. Rennie tells us, trained capons to nurse the chickens 

 he hatched by artificial heat. They clucked like hens and proved good 



