DOGS. 283 



board as soon as weaned, could not learn much from their 

 dam ; yet they did not relish flesh when they came to Eng- 

 land. In the islands of the Pacific Ocean, the dogs are bred 

 up on vegetables, and would not eat flesh when offered them 

 by our circumnavigators. 



"We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have sharp, 

 upright, fox-like ears; and that hanging ears, which are 

 esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice breeding and 

 cultivation. Thus, in the Travels of Tsbrandt Ides from 

 Muscovy to China, the dogs which draw the Tartars on snow- 

 sledges near the river Oby, are engraved with prick-ears, like 

 those from Canton. The Kamschatdales also train the same 

 sort of sharp-eared, peak-nosed dogs to draw their sledges ; 

 as may be seen in an elegant print engraved for Captain 

 Cook's last voyage round the world. 



Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be imper- 

 tinent to add, that spaniels, as all sportsmen know, though 

 they hunt partridges and pheasants as it were by instinct, 

 and with much delight and alacrity, yet will hardly touch 

 their bones when offered as food ; nor will a mongrel dog of 

 my own, though he is remarkable for finding that sort of 

 game. But when we came to offer the bones of partridges 

 to the two Chinese dogs, they devoured them with much 

 greediness, and licked the platter clean. 



No sporting dogs will flush woodcocks till inured to the 

 scent, and trained to the sport, which they then pursue with 

 vehemence and transport ; but then they will not touch their 

 bones, but turn from them with abhorrence, even when they 

 are hungry. 



Now, that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such 

 birds as they are not disposed to hunt, is no wonder ; but 

 why they reject and do not care to eat their natural game, is 

 not so easily accounted for, since the end of hunting seems 

 to be, that the chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs, again, 

 will not devour the more rancid water-fowls ; nor indeed the 

 bones of any wild-fowls ; nor will they touch the fetid bodies 

 of birds that feed on offal and garbage ; and indeed there may 

 be somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance of 

 dislike ; for vultures,* and kites, and ravens, and crows, &c., 



* Hasselquist, in his Travels to the Levant, observes, that the dogs and 



