CHAPTER IX 



CATTLE SCOTCH POLLED ABERDEEN-ANGUS AND 

 GALLOWAY 



Aberdeen- Angus Habitat Colour Ancestors Early Breeders 

 Modern Prize-Winners Standard of Excellence (Bull) Points 

 (Cow) Comparison with the Galloway Their Crosses Herd Book 

 and Polled Cattle Society Aberdeen-Angus Red Polls Origin- 

 Galloways Distinctive Characteristics Colour Resemblance to 

 West Highlanders Prepotency Early Breeders Milking Qualities 

 Herd Book Blue-grey and other Crosses Quotations from Gilbert 

 Murray and Dr Gillespie Biggar's Method of Feeding Belted 

 Galloways Low and Gilbert on other Belted Cattle Character- 

 istics Breeders in Tyneside and in Galloway. 



THE Aberdeen - Angus Breed, 1 from Aberdeenshire, 

 Forfarshire, and the district largely embraced within 

 the adjoining counties, is most probably the result of the 

 amalgamation of a number of very different, local, polled and 

 also horned breeds, associated with careful selection and 

 in-and-in breeding, together with, it is asserted, the infusion, 

 within comparatively recent times, of a greater or less degree 

 of alien blood. In common with the only other domesticated 

 breeds of the Scottish mainland the Galloway, the West 

 Highland, and the Ayrshire there is a strong probability, if 

 there is not absolute proof, that it originally descended from 

 the native wild cattle of the country. The difference of 

 climate and surroundings, together with the influence of 

 artificial selection by man, and probably the importation of 

 fresh blood from abroad, is sufficient to account for the 

 diverse appearances in all those allied varieties. 



The absence of horns and the prevailing almost 

 uniformly black colour, although ranking among the most 

 persistent characteristics of the Northern Scotch polls, were 



1 See also The History of Polled Aberdeen- Angus Cattle^ by Mac- 

 donaldand Sinclair: Blackwood & Son, Edinburgh, 1882. 



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