I833.J CURIOUS BREED OF OXEN. 105 



is driving the cattle twice a week to a central spot, in order to make 

 them tame, and to count them. This latter operation would be thought 

 difficult, where there are ten or fifteen thousand head together. It is 

 managed on the principle that the cattle invariably divide themselves 

 into little troops of from forty to one hundred. Each troop is recognized 

 by a few peculiarly marked animals, and its number is known : so that, 

 one being lost out of ten thousand, it is perceived by its absence from 

 one of the tropillas. During a stormy night the cattle all mingle 

 together ; but the next morning the tropillas separate as before ; so 

 that each animal must know its fellow out of ten thousand others. 



On two occasions I met with in this province some oxen of a very 

 curious breed, called nata or niata. They appear externally to hold 

 nearly the same relation to other cattle, which bull or pug dogs do to 

 other dogs. Their forehead is very short and broad, with the nasal 

 end turned up, and the upper lip much drawn back ; their lower jaws 

 project beyond the upper, and have a corresponding upward curve ; 

 hence their teeth are always exposed. Their nostrils are seated high 

 up and are very open ; their eyes project outwards. When walking 

 they carry their heads low, on a short neck ; and their hinder legs are 

 rather longer compared with the front legs than is usual. Their bare 

 teeth, their short heads, and upturned nostrils gave them the most 

 ludicrous self-confident air of defiance imaginable. 



Since my return, I have procured a skeleton head, through the 

 kindness of my friend Captain Sulivan, R.N., which is now deposited 

 in the College of Surgeons.* Don F. Muniz, of Luxan, has kindly 

 collected for me all the information which he could respecting this 

 breed. From his account it seems that about eighty or ninety years 

 ago they were rare, and kept as curiosities at Buenos Ayres. The 

 breed is universally believed to have originated amongst the Indians 

 southward of the Plata ; and that it was with them the commonest 

 kind. Even to this day, those reared in the provinces near the Plata 

 show their less civilized origin, in being fiercer than common cattle, 

 and in the cow easily deserting her first calf, if visited too often or 

 molested. It is a singular fact that an almost similar structure to the 

 abnormal f one of the niata breed, characterizes, as I am informed by 

 Dr. Falconer, that great extinct ruminant of India, the Sivatherium. 

 The breed is very true; and a niata bull and cow invariably produce 

 niata calves. A niata bull with a common cow, or the reverse cross, 

 produces offspring having an intermediate character, but with the niata 

 characters strongly displayed : according to Senor Muniz, there is the 

 clearest evidence, contrary to the common belief of agriculturists in 

 analogous cases, that the niata cow when crossed with a common bull 

 transmits her peculiarities more strongly than the niata bull when 



* Mr. Waterhouse has drawn up a detailed description of this head, 

 which I hope he will publish in some Journal. 



\ A nearly similar abnormal, but I do not know whether hereditary, 

 structure has been observed in the carp, and likewise in the crocodile of 

 the Ganges : " Histoire des Anomalies," par M. Isid. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, 

 torn, i., p. 244. 



