OF S E L B O R N E. 
IS remarkable for finding that fort of game. But, when we came 
to offer the bones of partridges to the two Chinefe dogs, they de- 
voured them with much greedinefs, and licked the platter clean. 
No fporting dogs will flufli woodcocks till inured to the fcent 
and trained to the fport, which they then purfue v/ith vehemence 
and tranfport ; but then they will not touch their bones, but turn 
from them with abhorrence, even when they are hungry. 
Now, that dogs fhould not be fond of the bones of fuch birds as 
they are not difpofed to hunt is no wonder ; but why they rejefi: 
and do not care to eat their natural game is not fo eafdy accounted 
for, fmce the end of hunting feems to be, that the chafe purfued 
fhould be eaten. Do"s 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 fomewhat of providential 
inftinft in this circumftance of diflike; for vultures % and kites, 
and ravens, and crows, &c. were intended to be melTmates with 
dogs'^ over their carrion ; and feem to be appointed by Nature as 
fellow-fcavengcrs to remove all cadaverous nuifances from the face 
of the earth. 
I am, he. 
= Haplquijl, in his Travels to the Levant, obferves that the dogs and vultures at 
Grand Cairo maintain fuch a friendly intercourfe as to bring up their young together in 
the fame place. 
* The Chinefe word for a dog to an European ear founds lllie quibluh. 
LETTER 
