218 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 



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 Kam- 

 schatdales 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 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 

 dogs ^ 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. 



2 The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like quihloh. 



