236 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 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 pro- 

 vidential instinct in this circumstance of dislike ; for 

 vultures,! and kites, and ravens, and crows, etc. were 

 intended to be messmates with dogs ^ over their carrion ; 



iRasselquist, 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. 



* The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like qulhloh. 



