108 The Naturalist in La Plata. 
mile, and never recover its dam. The gaucho, who 
is not merciful, frequently saves himself all trouble 
and delay by knocking it senseless with a blow of 
his whip-handle, and without checking his horse. 
I have seen a lamb, about two days old, start up 
from sleep, and immediately start off in pursuit of 
a puffball about as big as a man’s head, carried 
past it over the smooth turf by the wind, and 
chase it for a distance of five hundred yards, until 
the dry ball was brought to a stop by a tuft of 
coarse grass. This blundering instinct is quickly 
laid aside when the lamb has learned to distinguish 
its dam from other objects, and its dam’s voice from 
other sounds. When four or five days old it will 
start from sleep, but instead of rushing blindly away 
after any receding object, it first looks about it, and 
will then recognize and run to its dam. 
I have often been struck with the superiority of 
the pampa or creolla—the old native breed of sheep 
—in the greater vigour of the young when born over 
the improved Huropean varieties. The pampa 
descends to us from the first sheep introduced into 
La Plata about three centuries ago, and is a tall, 
gaunt bony animal, with lean dry flesh, like venison, 
and long straight wool, like goats’ hair. In their 
struggle for cxistence in a country subject to sudden 
great changes of temperature, to drought, and fail- 
ure of grass, they have in a great measure lost the 
qualities which make the sheep valuable to man as 
a food and wool-producing animal; but on the 
other hand they have to some extent recovered the 
vigour of a wild animal, being hardy enough to 
exist without any shelter, and requiring from their 
