274 MR. ERNEST GIBSON ON 



"It is the property of Mr. Ernest Gibson, of Ajo *, who 

 intends sending it to the Zoological Society of London, in 

 whose natural history museum f exists a skeleton of the same 

 animal, studied and described by the celebrated naturalist 

 Professor Owen. 



" The Ajo cow is almost a dwarf. The head is small and 

 the lower jaw very projecting. In its other characteristics it 

 presents nothing notable beyond a continual restlessness, well 

 in keeping with its wild disposition, and marked contrast 

 with the placidity of the large and beautiful European breeds 

 surrounding it. 



" The Cow-dog is perhaps at this date an example of atavism, 

 unique in this country, of a breed produced naturally in the 

 Pampas of Buenos Aires, and very recently extirpated by the 

 foremost Argentine stockbreeders, who were naturally afraid of 

 the increase in their herds of a race of so little utility and 

 unadapted for the struggle for existence, inasmuch as it was 

 the first to succumb in the great droughts when the abnormal 

 conformation of the jaw-bones handicapped it in grazing on the 

 scanty and shortened pasture. 



" In the time of the tyrant Rosas it was believed that the 

 Niatas constituted an indigenous race which had nothing to do 

 with the cattle imported from Paraguav by the brothers Goess 

 in 1558. 



" Later on it has been said that they originated from an 

 African breed, introduced on both sides of the River Plate. 

 This latter supposition has been based upon the existence in 

 Equatorial Africa of bovine animals which resemble, though 

 remotely, the Niata type of the Pampas. But up to date, so 

 far as is known, no one has been able to produce any proof in 

 reference to the importation to the Argentine or Uruguay of 

 bulls or cows from that country. 



" In my opinion, the Niata type is nothing more than a 

 variety of the primitive bovine type, introduced into the country 

 by the Goess brothers, and later on propagated in the Pampean 

 zone comprehended between the Sierra ranges of Tandil and 

 "Ventana. 



" On this hypothesis, the question arises as to the manner 

 in which this strange breed should have evolved itself in a 

 strain so notably distinct from the ordinary Creole class. 



" First of all, whoever has read the 'Journal of Researches 

 into the Natural History and Geology " (admirable investigations 

 of the illustrious Darwin) will recall what he states regarding 

 the transitory appearance in France of the Niata. type of the 

 Plate, which has since been confirmed from other parts of 

 Europe ; but it has been described as hornless and of a less 

 accentuated prognathism. 



* The district of Ajo, pronounced " Ah-ho," lies at the mouth of the estuary of 

 the River Plate, near Cape San Antonio. 

 f | The skeleton is in the Museum of the 1\. Coll. Surgeons. — Ebitok P. Z. S.J 



