146 BANDA ORIENTAL. (cmap. v1IL 
teeth, their short heads, and upturned 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 College 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 molested. 
It is asingular fact that an almost similar structure to the ab- 
normal one of the niata breed, characterizes, as I am informed 
by Dr. Falconer, that great extinct ruminant of India, the Siva- 
therium. The breed is very true; and a niata bull and cow 
invariably produce niata calves. A niata bull with a common 
cow, or the reverse cross, produces offspring having an interme- 
diate character, but with the niata characters strongly displayed : 
according to Sefior Muniz, there is the clearest evidence, con- 
trary to the common belief of agriculturists in analogous cases, 
that the niata cow when crossed with a common bull transmits 
her peculiarities more strongly than the niata bull when crossed 
with a common cow. When the pasture is tolerably long, the 
niata cattle feed with the tongue and palate as well as common 
cattle ; but during the great droughts, when so many animals 
perish, the niata breed is under a great disadvantage, and would 
be exterminated if not attended to; for the common cattle, like 
horses, are able just to keep alive, by browsing with their lips on 
twigs of trees and reeds; this the niatas cannot so well do, as 
their lips do not join, and hence they are found to perish before 
the common cattle. This strikes me asa good illustration of 
how little we are able to judge from the ordinary habits of life, 
* Mr. Waterhouse has drawn up a detailed description of this head, 
which I hope he will publish in some Journal. 
¢ Anearly similar abnormal, but I do not know whether hereditary, struc- 
ture has been observed in the carp, and likewise in the crocodile of tha 
Ganges: Histoire des Anomalies, par M. Isid. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, tom. i. 
p. 244. 
