294 NATURAL HISTORY 



have a surly, savage demeanour like their ancestors, which 

 are not domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they arc 

 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 ofl'ered them by our circum- 

 navigators. 



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. 



r^ J o 



Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be im- 

 pertinent 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 



