THE BEEF BREEDS OF CATTLE 239 



attention paid to what is now known as the fine points, 

 but all of the care was directed to the individual merit. 

 Color was a secondary consideration, and, while the great 

 majority of the cattle were black, yet many good ones 

 were marked with a dun-colored stripe down the back, 

 while others were brindled, and still others were black 

 and white, and not infrequently calves came of a peculiar 

 pale red color caused 

 by the absence of the 

 black pigment, which 

 is a characteristic of 

 the breed. It w^,s 

 Hugh Watson of 

 Keillor who first de- 

 termined on the de- FlQ 3 9. - Aberdeen-Angus cow. 

 sirability of a uniform 



color in the breed, and who declared himself for the " Black 

 and all black ; the Angus Doddie, and no Surrender ! " 



Not so much care was exercised then as now in the choice 

 of the sires, and in some cases animals were used that had 

 rudimentary horns called scurs. These are small horn- 

 like excrescences, that are not attached to the skull, and 

 have no horn core. This condition is not considered to 

 represent any impurity of the blood, but simply is a hark- 

 ing back to a time when the progenitors of these cattle 

 were horned. Scurs are extremely objectionable from the 

 present standpoint, and males so marked are debarred 

 from registration. The fashion in color also demands 

 that no white should appear above the under-line, but a 

 white udder is said to be an indication of a good milch 

 cow. The demand for solid black color is carried, perhaps, 

 beyond the proper point. There have been a number of 

 attempts to get together the red-colored females and to 



