DOG KIND. 2Q 



mains a distance between them, so that the dog, 

 by opening his mouth ever so wide, does not lose 

 the power of his jaws. But it is otherwise in the 

 cat kind, whose incisors or cutting teeth are very 

 small, and whose grinding teeth, when brought 

 together, touch more closely than those of the 

 dog, and consequently have less power. Thus, 

 for instance, I can squeeze any thing more forci- 

 bly between my thumb and fore-finger, where the 

 distance is greater, than between any other two 

 fingers, whose distance from each other is less. 



This animal is capable of reproducing at the 

 age of twelve months,* goes nine weeks with 

 young, and lives to about the age of twelve. Few 

 quadrupeds are less delicate in their food ; and 

 yet there are many kinds of birds which the dog 

 will not venture to touch. He is even known, 

 although in a savage state, to abstain from injur- 

 ing some which one might suppose he had every 

 reason to oppose. The dogs and the vultures 

 which live wild about Grand Cairo in Egypt, (for 

 the Mahometan law has expelled this useful ani- 

 mal from human society), continue together in a 

 very sociable and friendly manner.t As they are 

 both useful in devouring such carcasses as might 

 otherwise putrefy, and thus infect the air, the in- 

 habitants supply them with provisions every day, 



* To this description I will beg leave to add a few particulars from Lin- 

 naeus, as I find them in the original. " Vomitua gramina purgatur : carat 

 supra lapidem. Album gracum antisepticum summum. Mingit ad latus 

 (this, however, not till the animal is nine months old) cum hospite saepe 

 centies. Odorat anum alterius. Procis rixantibus crudelis. Menstruans 

 coit cum variis. Mordet ilia illos. Cohseret copula junctus." 



f Hasselquist, Iter Palaestin. p. 232. 



