The Modern Theory of Instinct 363 



Oxen a day. I will quote the account of an 

 eye-witness : ^ 



' The cattle arrive in large herds and the 

 matance begins on the day after the arrival. 

 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, stand- 

 ing on an outer platform which runs along the 

 wall of the smaller margueira, lassoes one of the 

 crowd of animals 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 wind- 

 lass, where it is brought up with a thud and 

 remains without power of movement. 



* Another assistant, the desnucador, also stand- 

 ing on the platform, has then but to stick a knife, 

 at the back of the head, between 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 



^ L. COUTY, in the Revue scientifique^ 6 August xZZi.— Author'' s 

 Note. 



