VIII 
CURIOUS BREED OF OXEN 
155 
marked animals, and its number is known : so that, one being 
lost out of ten thousand, it is perceived by its absence from 
one of the tropillas. During a stormy night the cattle all 
mingle together ; but the next morning the tropillas separate 
as before ; so that each animal must know its fellow out of 
ten thousand others. 
On two occasions I met with in this province some oxen 
of a very curious breed, called nata or niata. They appear 
externally to hold nearly 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 corresponding 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 carry 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 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. 1 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 coijimonest kind. 
Even to this day, those reared in the provinces near the Plata 
show their less civilised origin, in being fiercer than common 
cattle, and in the cow easily deserting her first calf, if visited 
too often or molested. It is a singular fact that an almost 
similar structure to the abnormal 2 one of the niata breed, 
characterises, as I am informed by Dr. Falconer, that great 
extinct ruminant of India, the Sivatherium. The breed is very 
true ; and a niata bull and cow invariably produce niata calves. 
1 Mr. Waterhouse has drawn up a detailed description of this head, which I hope 
he will publish in some Journal. 
2 A nearly similar abnormal, but I do not know whether hereditary, structure 
has been observed in the carp, and likewise in the crocodile of the Ganges : Histoire 
des Anomalies, par M. Isid. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, tom. i. p. 244. 
