188 NATURAL HISTO11Y OF SELBORNE. 



disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the scent of a covey of partridges 

 till she sprung them, giving her tongue all the time. The dogs in 

 South America are dumb ; but these bark much in a short thick 

 manner like foxes, and have a surly, savage demeanour like their 

 ancestors, which are not domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they 

 are fed for the table with rice-meal and other farinaceous food. These 

 dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned, could not learn 

 much from their dam ; yet they did not relish flesh when they came 

 to England. In the islands of the Pacific ocean the dogs are bred up 

 on vegetables, 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 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 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 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 

 dogsf 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." l 



1 Canton, IcUn or khuon. Pekin, kineu. Greek, xlw. 



