186 FIELD AND FERN. 



the near fore foot, hind legs, and tail corresponded 

 with photographic accuracy. 



The herd was commenced by its present owner in 

 1826 with Brown Mouth and Nackets, which were 

 left him by his father. All the Brown Mouths had 

 a brown muzzle, a yellow udder, yellow skin inside 

 their ears, and sometimes yellow stripes down the 

 back, and were not only good feeders, but great 

 butter cows. The blackest-coated tribes will some- 

 times have a yellow skin, and it almost invariably 

 denotes " a fill pail." This latter quality was very 

 marked in the Nackets tribe, which were darker in 

 their coat and smaller than the Brown Mouths. 



Porty by Colonel (145), from the tribe of Eosie, " a 

 dowry cow/' whose milking sort had been in the 

 family since '82, crossed well with both these tribes. 

 Colonel was a Nackets bull, with rather a brown 

 back, and so crusty that he had three years of penal 

 servitude in the plough. There was no Aberdeen 

 show in Forty's day; but although he was rather 

 small, his nice shape and peculiarly-fine bone brought 

 him up first at Inverury, and a cross with his own 

 sister helped not a little to improve the quality of the 

 herd. He worked on till he was nine ; and the next 

 purchase, after a bull from Mr. Hector of Fernieflat, 

 was Andrew (8), from Mr. Fullarton of Ardestie. 

 Young Andrew (9), from one of the Brown Mouth 

 tribe, was his best son ; and then Banks of Dee (12), 

 a purchase from the late Sir Thomas Burnett of 

 Crathes, gave the herd a strong prestige in the show- 



