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BULLS HORSES FOXES. 249
sand cattle, and four thousand horses; but there were no
means of ascertaining their number, except by comparing the
accounts of the gaucho colonists, who were accustomed to
pursue them, not only for ordinary food or for their hides, but
even for their tongues alone, not taking the trouble to cai'ry
off more of the animal so wantonly slaughtered.* The wild
cattle are very large and very fat, and the bulls are really formidable
animals, perhaps among the largest and most savage
of their race. At Buenos Ayres, the ordinary weight of a
bull’s hide is less than fifty pounds, but the weight of such
hides in the East Falkland has exceeded eighty pounds. The
horses look well while galloping about wild, but the gauchos
say they are not of a good breed, and will not bear the fatigue
of an ordinary day’s work, such as a horse at Buenos Ayres
will go through without difficulty. Perhaps their ‘ softness,’ as
it is there called, may be owing to the food they get, as well
as to the breed. The wild pigs on East Falkland are of along-
legged, ugly kind ; but some of those on Saunders Island and
other places about West Falkland are derived from shortlegged
Chinese pigs. The only quadruped apparently indigenous
is a large fox, and as about this animal there has been
much discussion among naturalists, and the specimens now in the
British Museum were deposited there by me, I am induced to
make a few remarks upon it.
* “ The settlers, when they abandoned the eastern island, left behind
them several horses and horned cattle, which have increased so much,
that, on Ifoing; a few miles into the country, droves of both animals may
be seen. I have taken several of the bullocks by shooting- them. They
are generally ferocious, and will attack a single person; and thus, those
who hunt them are enabled to get within pistol-shot of them by the following
stratagem. Four or five men advance in a line upon the animal,
and, by appearing only as one person, it stands ready to attack, till within
one hundred yards, when the hunters spread themselves, and fire, endeavouring
to shoot the bullock either in the head or in the fore-shoulder.
The horses will also attack a single person, and their mode of doing so
is by forming a circle round him, and prancing upon him ; but by means
of a musquet they may be readily dispersed.”—Weddell’s Voyage, pp.
102, 103.
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