192 FIELD AND FERN. 



tween them and the great mass of English breeders 

 does not hold good now. " A great breeder in Eng- 

 land," he says, " is a great judge, and one who de- 

 lights in improved breeds. In Scotland, commonly 

 speaking, it means a man who has a great number 

 of half-starved calves and miserable lambs." 



When he first settled in the North, the beasts were 

 " knock-knee' d behind" and narrow. Soon after 

 that, Sir Andrew Ramsay brought a few Lancashire 

 cattle to Scotland, white on the back, with wide 

 spreading horns; and then the doddies came in, 

 " but still the calves cry back." With regard to the 

 horse patriarchs, he " cried back himself" to the days 

 when every grey was a Delpini or a Sir Harry Dins- 

 dale, and every black a Sorcerer or a Thunderbolt. 

 According to him, length of leg was a fault among the 

 earlier sires of the district : Bethlem Gaber to wit, 

 who belonged to Lord Aboyne, and ' { had the longest 

 I ever saw" ; and Buchan's Blaize, near Crieff, who 

 was an immense winner in spite of them. The Suf- 

 folk Punch which Captain Barclay brought down he 

 passes over without much notice. Putting Bakewell 

 rams to Highland ewes which had been bred in and 

 in, or " owre sib/' till many of them seemed but a 

 handful for a crown, was one of the earliest crosses 

 he noted. Its effects were seen in lambs of the first 

 cross making ten shillings and sixpence, and the 

 wiping out of every trace of the degenerate dam 

 " except a shrivelled horn, which was rubbed off in 

 winter." 



