THE VIPER- '201 



To a thinking mind, nothing is more wonderful than that 

 early instinct which impresses young animals with the 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 larnb 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 off with the point of our scissars. 



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 approaching ; because then, probably, we should 

 have found them somewhere in the neck, and not in the 

 abdomen. 



LETTER LXXIV. 



TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



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 chickens like hens. 

 Barrow-hogs have also small tusks like sows.-)- 



* An adder with two distinct heads, which lived three days, taken with 

 five others from the body of an old one, found in a ditch at Drumlanrig, 

 Dumfriesshire, is now in the museum of Mr Thomas Grierson, Baitforrt, 

 near Thornhill. ED. 



f- After castration animals generally lose their spirit, although, in the 

 instance of horses, this is by no means always the case. The following 

 fact is a strong evidence of this : The horse of a nobleman in Ireland 

 ran at a man, seized him with his teeth by the arm, which he broke ; 

 he then threw him down, and lay upon him. Every effort to get him off 



