570 THE HOME, FAEM AND BUSINESS^ YCLOP^DI A. 



range of districts, and to thrive in situations exposed to cold winds where 

 other cattle would not do at all. This also helps them to improve even 

 on such poor pasture lands that would be quite unfitted for the keep of 

 cattle of other breol.s. 



THE GALLOWAY. 



In the county of the same name, and holding the honour of 

 having improved the Norfolk polls, the Aberdeen Angus poll, and even 

 the Short-horn breed, is hornless, with sometimes a small loose excres- 

 cence, or " scur," resembling a horn. They are black, or a dark brin- 

 dled brown, straight and broad in the back, and nearly level from the 

 head to the rump. They are round in the ribs, and also between the shoul- 

 ders and the ribs, or the ribs and the loins. They are broad in the loins, 

 without any large projecting hook-bones. In roundness of bone and ful- 

 ness of ribs they will compare with any breed, and also in the proportion 

 of the loins to the hook-bones, or protuberances of the ribs. They are 

 long in the quarters and ribs and deep in the chest, but not broad in the 

 twist. The slightest inspection will show that there is less space between 

 the hook and hip-bone and the ribs than in most other breeds, a consid- 

 eration of much importance ; for the advantage of length of carcass con- 

 sists in the animal being well ribbed home or as little space as possible 

 lost in the flank. 



The Galloway is short in the leg, and moderately fine in the shank- 

 bones, with a hardiness and disposition to fatten. No breed is so large 

 and muscular above the knee, with room for a deep, broad and capacious 

 chest ; the neck is thick almost to a fault. 



The skin is loose and mellow, and clothed with long soft silky hair, and 

 handles soft and kindly, so much so that even on the moorland farms their 

 hides little indicate the privations they undergo. 



THE WEST HIGHLAND. 



The best Highland breed of horned cattle is reared in the western part 

 of Scotland. The horns are large, sharp pointed, and upturned, and the 

 colour generally black, though sometimes brindled or dun. The hides 

 are thick and covered with long soft hair of a close pile, which nature 

 seems to have intended as a protection against the severity of the climate 

 under which they are bred, for they lose much of this distinction when 

 reared in a southern country. In other respects they are not unlike the 

 Galloway breed, many of whose lest qualities they possess, and particu- 



