NORTHERN LIGHTS 123 



terms of close friendship with such congenial spirits 

 in the south as JOHN BOOTH, ANTHONY MAYNARD, 

 WETHERELL and TORR, and is said to have followed 

 closely in his wonderful manipulations of Angus 

 form the methods of those eminent English breeders, 

 including resort, at times, to close inter -breeding. 

 BOOTH'S Bracelet and Charity were Keillor's beau 

 ideals of beef form, and he directed his operations 

 with the blackskins to the attainment of a similar 

 type. 



McGoMBiE was the man who saved the "doddies" 

 from virtual extinction in Aberdeenshire at a time 

 when the Shorthorns were threatening to engulf 

 the indigenous type on its native heath. He began 

 about 1830, and for full fifty years devoted his 

 rare skill and judgment to the improvement of the 

 "bonnie blacks." The story of his triumphs would 

 fill a volume. 



I once spent a day at Ballindalloch, that great 

 stronghold of the Angus high up in the valley of 

 the Spey the guest of the late Sir GEORGE MAC- 

 PHERSON GRANT, and the pictures seen that day are 

 mirrored plainly still in memory after the lapse of 

 more than twenty years. The ancient castle with 

 its narrow spiral stairway in the tower, the views of 

 distant hill and wood, the winding river, the pas- 



