APPENDIX. 6 9 $ 



the notes or pafiages may be altered almoft at 

 pleafure. 



I tried once an experiment, which might indeed 

 have poflibly made fome alteration 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 mufcles of the larynx never ac- 

 quiring the proper degree of ftrength, which feems 

 to be requifite to the R nging of a bird, from Mr. 

 Hunter's directions. 



But it will perhaps be afked, why this operation 

 mould not improve the notes of a nettling, as much 

 as it is fuppofed to contribute to the greater per= 

 fection of the human voice. 



To this I aniwer, that caflration by no means 

 infures any fuch confequences for the voices of 

 much the greater part of Italian eunuchs are fa in- 

 different, that they have no means of procuring 

 a livelihood but by copying mufic, and this is 

 one of the reafons why fo few compofitions are 



* Lib. X. c. 21. 



2z2 publifhsd 



