Kuhlman: Black and White Ayrshires 



319 



A CHAMPION AYRSHIRE BULL 



Hobsland Perfect Peace, champion Ayrshire bull at Kilmarnock, Scotland, in April, 1914, 

 and also at the National Dairy show in Chicago in October, 1914. His color is nearly 

 white, the brown markings being almost exclusively confined to head and neck; and he 

 represents very well the prevailing fashionable type of Ayrshire bull in this country. 

 (Fig. 14.) 



The study of the early history of the 

 Ayrshire breed leads to several theories 

 explaining the appearance of this black 

 color as shown by the investigations of 

 John Speir. Even though the Ayrshire 

 is one of the most recent breeds, its 

 origin is as great a mystery as any of the 

 older ones. The original cattle of 

 Scotland were black in color, small in 

 size and had short horns. The Roman 

 invasion brought other types of cattle 

 into the country. The resulting fusion 

 may have formed the basis for some of 

 the later breeds. 



As a much larger number of the 

 Ayrshire cattle of today are white or 

 almost white, when compared with the 

 nimibers of the early days some people 

 think that the white color of the 

 Avrshire is a reversion to the color of 



some white ancestor like the wild white 

 cattle of Cadzow Forest. It seems 

 unhkely that the Ayrshire is in any 

 way related to the Cadzow Forest 

 cattle. Speir states that between 1865 

 and 1880 several bulls, mostly white in 

 color, became noted prize winners. 

 As a result they became very popular 

 and in a few years their progeny was 

 widely distributed. This easily accounts 

 for the prevalence of many Ayrshires 

 at the present time that are mostly 

 white. 



Other suppositions suggest Norwegian 

 or Spanish origin, but nothing has ever 

 been found to substantiate these claims. 

 That Dutch cattle were used in the 

 early formation of the British breeds 

 is quite probable. Writers of the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries fre- 



