188 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBOllNE. 
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 oflfered 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 ofl'ered 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 ofi*er 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 ofi*al 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." ^ 
1 Canton, Ichin or khuon. Pekin, Jcineu. Greek, zi/eov. 
