186 BANDA ORIENTAL. 



niata. They appear externally to hold neai-ly 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 correspond- 

 ing 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 caiTy 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. 



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 Col- 

 lege 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 mo- 

 lested. It is a singular fact, that an almost similar 

 structure to the abnormalt one of the niata breed 



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

 head, which I hope he will publish in some Journal. 



t A nearly similar abnormal, but I do not know whether hered- 

 itary, structure has been observed in the carp, and likewise in the 

 crocodile of the Ganges: Histoire des Anomalies, par M. Isid. 

 Geoffroy St. Hilaire, torn, i., p. 244. 



