The Natural History of Selborne 361 



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 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,* and kites, and ravens, and 

 crows, &c., were intended to be messmates with dogs f over their 

 carrion ; and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow-scavengers 

 to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the earth. 



I am, &c. 



* 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. 



t The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like quihloh. 



