206 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
LETTEE LXXIV. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRING TON. 
Caste ATION 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.^ 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 l)ook 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. 
' Eeaumur, Mr. Kennie tells us, trained capons to nurse the chickens 
he hatched by artificial heat. They clucked like hens and proved good 
nurses. 
