164 CATTLE ABERDEEN-ANGUS 



by no means uniform features in olden times. Black cattle 

 without horns were recorded nearly four hundred years ago, 1 

 but long after the beginning of last century very many of 

 the cattle from which the existing breed sprang had horns. 

 Their colours were extremely variable : some were yellow, 

 red, or brown ; others brindled (red and black, sometimes 

 with white mixed or broken in an irregular flaked fashion), 

 black and white, "belted" and "rigged" the latter black 

 with a white or brown stripe along the back. Certain herds 

 had a brown ring round the muzzle associated with the 

 brown ridge. The late Lord Southesk, himself at one time a 

 considerable breeder of polled cattle, writing on July 19, 1889, 

 reflected upon the change of colour in Highland cattle from 

 black to reds and yellows, and the possibility of the blacks 

 becoming nearly extinct, and added: "Just as the red, 

 brindled, and dun Polled Angus, common in my youth, are 

 now hardly ever seen." 



According to the early records, the largest and best 

 varieties of the polled cattle were to be found in the low 

 country. The smaller horned cattle which resembled the old 

 Highland breeds occupied the uplands. 2 Buchan cattle, 

 about half of which were polled at the end of the eighteenth 

 century, justly claimed superiority. They are said to have done 

 so at the time of the Romans. They have been represented 

 from time immemorial by two polled breeds possessing good 

 milking powers, but of very different size. These were locally 

 termed " humlies," while the early Polled-Angus cattle were 

 named " doddies." In the General View of the Agriculture of 

 Angus, published in 1813, it is stated with regard to the 

 general stock that "little attention was then paid to the 

 selection of the males or females by whom the breed was 

 propagated." The good qualities of the modern cattle, we 



J A legal document, in Vol. III., p. 344, of the Spalding Club 

 Antiquities of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, refers to a case of 

 " sasine," or the assumption of the actual possession of property, 

 symbolised by giving a handful of earth and a stone " yird and stane." 

 In relation to an alternative symbol, it mentions the acceptance by John 

 Cumyne in 1523 of unum bovem nigrum hommyee a black hummel 

 (hornless) ox valued at 405. 8d. Scots. Banffshire Journal. 



2 A valuable paper on " Aberdeenshire Horned Cattle," by James R. 

 Barclay, Banffshire Journal Office, appears in the Transactions of the 

 Highland Society, Vol. XVIII., 1906. 



