WHEN SUCCESS CAME TO SITTYTON 149 



was closely bred, being the product of mating a bull 

 called The Queen's Roan to his half-sister, both 

 parents being sired by the good bull Will Honey- 

 comb that had been used for some years by Mr. 

 WILKINSON, and was deemed worthy of illustration in 

 one of the early volumes of COATES' Herd Book. 



Lancaster Comet was scarcely as massive as 

 Mr. GRUICKSHANK would have liked and was relegated 

 to the GLYNE farm, it is said, ''to hide his horns." 

 The following spring he was turned into a pasture 

 along with a lot of cows that had not settled to 

 the bulls by which they had been served. He ran 

 out quite late in the field that fall, and contracted 

 rheumatism so severely that it became necessary to 

 send him to the shambles. About a dozen calves 

 resulted, but all but one were allowed to pass out 

 of the herd in the ordinary course of trade. There 

 was a bull among these, however, that possessed an 

 indefinable something that appealed to the master's 

 hand and eye. He made no boasts and indulged in 

 no prophecies. He just put the youngster one side 

 and carefully noted his development. This calf of 

 destiny was dropped on the 29th of November, 1859. 

 By 1861 he had grown into a bull deemed good 

 enough to be shown at Leeds and Aberdeen, but he 

 was handicapped for age at the former exhibition, 



