THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



Thus, in the travels of Ysbrandt Ides from Muscovy to China, 

 the dogs which draw the Tartars on snow-sledges near the river 

 Obey 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 imperti- 

 nent 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 dog 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 fowl ; nor 

 will they touch the foetid 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, 1 and kites, 

 and ravens, and crows, &c. were intended to be messmates with 

 dogs over their carrion ; and seem to be appointed by Nature as 

 fellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the 

 face of the earth. 



SELBORNB. 



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

 vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring up 

 their young together in the same place. 



