136 FIELD AND FERN. 



but when you are once fairly among the beech hedges 

 and deep woods of Straloch, where a whole colony of 

 rooks 



"Find a perch and dormitory too," 



the chesnut mare with her foal at the corner of the 

 copse, the ivied bridge, and the keeper with his 

 pointers, make up rather a pretty " bit." 



The brothers Cruickshank, Amos and Anthony, de- 

 voted their earliest Sittyton energies to the old Aber- 

 deen poll, under the orthodox county belief that it 

 would grow larger and ripen earlier than any " beef- 

 cylinder 5 '' north of the Tweed, but still their shorthorn 

 beginning dates from '37. They went to work in a 

 very cautious way, with a cow in-calf, called " Dur- 

 ham Countess," but short in the pedigree withal. 

 Her first produce was a white bull, and then, after 

 rather a discouraging two years 5 interval, came a roan 

 heifer, Peeress by Barclay's Sovereign, of Mason's 

 Lady Sarah tribe. The latter was second in the 

 cow class, when the Highland Society met at Aber- 

 deen; but, although she then brought the maiden 

 premium to Sittyton, she never had a heifer calf. Of 

 a trio of red heifers which came next from Mr. Smith 

 of Elkington, near Louth, only one, Princess byLowd- 

 ham (10477) ever bred ; but Moss Rose by Grazier 

 (1085) and Carnation by A-la-Mode (725) turned 

 the scale, and their tribes remain to this day. The 

 white Inkhorn (6091) was bought from Captain Bar- 

 clay as a cross, and was used for two seasons; when 

 Premier (6308), another of Lady Sarah's (" thestang 



