272 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
Thus, in the travels of Ysbrandt Ides from Muscovy to China, 
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 hast voyage round the world. 
]S"ow we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be imperti- 
nent 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 dog 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. 
ISTow, 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 fowl ; 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 I^ature as 
fellow- scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the 
face of the earth. 
Selborne. 
^ 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. 
