266 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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 Yshrandt Ides from 

 Muscovy to Chioia, 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 

 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 off'ered 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 foetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage; and 

 indeed there may be somewhat of providential instinct in 



