DOGS. 
243 
and mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The 
bitch has a dew-claw on each hind leg ; the dog has none. 
When taken out into a field the bitch showed some 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 m 
South America are dumb ; but these bark much in a short thick 
manner, hke 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 farina- 
ceous 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 beheve 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 eflfect 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 mxay 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 imper- 
tinent 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 oflfered 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 
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