230 
NATURAL BIST 0 BY 
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 XXXII. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
ASTRATION has a strange effect; it emas- 
culates 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 beard- 
lesS' 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. 
Thus far it is plain that it puts a stop to the growth of 
those 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 : he had a boar so fierce 
and amorous, that, to prevent mischief^ orders were given 
' Reaumur trained capons to nurse the chickens which he hatched by 
artificial heat. They clucked exactly like a hen, and proved as good 
tiurses as a real mother could have been. — ^Ed. 
