The
Chief Trouble With An Estancia Is Driving The Cattle Twice A
Week To A Central Spot, In Order To Make Them Tame, And To Count
Them.
This latter operation would be thought difficult,
where there are ten or fifteen thousand head together.
It
is managed on the principle that the cattle invariably divide
themselves into little troops of from forty to one hundred.
Each troop is recognized by a few peculiarly 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 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 a singular fact that an almost similar structure
to the abnormal [2] one of the niata breed, characterizes, 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. A niata
bull with a common cow, or the reverse cross, produces offspring
having an intermediate character, but with the niata
characters strongly displayed: according to Senor Muniz,
there is the clearest evidence, contrary 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 116 of 402
Words from 59563 to 60082
of 208183
