Description of the Niata. 67 



On an estancia at the Arroyo de San Juan, Darwin 

 met with a curious breed of cattle, which aroused his 

 interest and curiosity to a high degree. They were 

 called nata, or niata, and seemed to him to bear the 

 same relation to their tribe in general that the bull- 

 dog does to its fellows of the canine race. " The 

 forehead," he says, " 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 nos- 

 trils 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 up-turned nostrils give them the most ludicrous, 

 self-confident air of defiance imaginable." 



Darwin secured the skull of one of these oxen, 

 which is now in the museum of the College of Sur- 

 geons, London, and upon investigation learned that 

 the singular breed originated among the Indians 

 south of the Plata. He remarks that it is a curious 

 fact that an almost similar structure to this abnormal 

 one of the niata is fou,nd in the fossil sivatherium. 



Our young naturalist was always on the look-out 

 for good collecting fields, and was in constant 

 receipt of reports from the natives of wonders of 

 various kinds, which in many instances amounted to 

 nothing. Hearing of some gigantic bones, he visited 

 a ranch on the Sarandis, a small tributary of the Rio 

 Negro, where he found a fine head of the toxodon. 



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