102 A HISTORY OF SHORT-HORN CATTLE. 



his great "find" at Wolviston, the Princess bull 

 Belvedere. The merit of the earlier Duch- 

 esses had been largely lost through excessive 

 inbreeding. The Princess-and-Oxford crossed 

 stock that acquired fame under the Duchess 

 name in the Short-horn world were in truth 

 Bates cattle, but had only a small percentage 

 of the old Duchess blood. 



The responsibility for the existing scheme of 

 Short-horn tribal nomenclature and prevailing 

 methods of herd-book registration does not rest 

 entirely upon Mr. Bates. We only use this case 

 as an illustration of the fact that the system 

 is calculated to befog rather than enlighten 

 those who seek to fathom the depths of Short- 

 horn pedigree records. One has but to tran- 

 scribe to a tabulated blank the pedigree of any 

 animal recorded in the Short-horn Herd Books 

 of Great Britain and America to see at a glance 

 what an absurdly small proportion of the an- 

 cestry is presented. Those who have all the 

 herd books at their command can under the 

 present system, it is true, ferret out the facts as 

 to the blood lines of their cattle, but until the 

 tabulation method is adopted for catalogues 

 and transfer certificates the average buyer will 

 possess but the mere shadow of a pedigree. 



The Waterloos. During the same year that 

 Mr. Bates bought Belvedere and the Matchem 

 Cow he had purchased from Thomas Parkin of 



