OF SELBORNE. 379 



bles, 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 

 Ysbrandt 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 Kamtschatdales also train the same sort of sharp- 

 eared, peaked-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 

 impertinent 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 remark- 

 able 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 pur- 

 sue with vehemence and transport ; but then they will 

 not touch their bones, but turn from them with abhor- 

 rence, 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 won- 

 der ; 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 foetid bodies of birds that 

 feed on offal and garbage: and indeed there may be 



