262 DOGS. 



cultivation. Thus in ihe 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, 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 

 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 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. 

 were intended to be messmates with dogs J over their carrion ; 

 and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow-scavengers, to 

 remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the earth. 



* Pointers are frequently known to set game the first time they are 

 taken into a field, and to preserve their point with the steadiness of an 

 old well-trained dog. En. 



f- Hasselquist, in his Travels to the Levant, observes, that the dogB 

 and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse, as to 

 , bring up their young together in the same place. 



\ The Chinese word loi a dog, to a European ear, sounds like quttdch. 



