The Modern Theory of Instinct 



A whole herd is confined in an enclosed 

 space, or margueira. From time to time, 

 men on horseback drive fifty or sixty beasts 

 into a narrower and stronger enclosure, with 

 a sloping floor of brick, boards or concrete, 

 which is always very slippery. A special 

 operator, standing on an outer platform 

 which runs along the wall of the smaller 

 margueira, lassoes one of the crowd of ani- 

 mals by the head or, more often, by the 

 horns. The middle portion of the long, 

 stout lasso is coiled round a windlass; and a 

 draught-horse, or sometimes a pair of oxen, 

 drags the lassoed beast along and makes it 

 slide, in spite of its struggles, right against 

 the windlass, where it is brought up with a 

 thud and remains without power of move- 

 ment. 



" Another assistant, the desnucador, also 

 standing on the platform, has then but to 

 stick a knife, at the back of the head, be- 

 tween the occipital bone and the axis; and 

 the paralysed animal topples on to a trolley 

 in which it is carted off. It is at once thrown 

 on an inclined plane where other special la- 

 bourers bleed it and skin it. But, as the 

 injury to the cervical marrow varies a good 

 deal in position and extent, it often happens 

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