370 FIELD AND FERN. 



choice ones are in his herd, but they can only be de- 

 scribed by painting ; and the " Return to their Native 

 Heath of the Winners at Battersea," by Mr. Gourlay 

 Steell, who renews his strength in Argyllshire as 

 each summer comes round, best tells the story of their 

 shaggy coat and tameless eye. All the cattle except 

 the five-year-old heifers are wintered in the house. 

 Sexton boars have also worked their way down here, 

 and lie stretched on fern in their iron and Caithness 

 flag tabernacles. Berkshires are kept, but they are 

 not liked nearly so much as the Essex, and, in fact* 

 the taste for pigs finds no " lateral extension" in 

 the county. Ploughmen do not care to keep them, 

 and would think very little of half-a-dozen by the 

 side of a " bit of an Ayrshire." 



The black-faces have flourished for only six sum- 

 mers at Poltalloch, and the flock numbers, on an ave- 

 rage, about nine hundred to a thousand. They suc- 

 ceeded Leicesters, which, like the Downs, found the 

 climate too wet, and black-faces have proved the 

 masters of the situation. The " curly horns" were 

 principally selected by Mr. Martin, the factor, from 

 most of the prize-winning flocks in Scotland. Then 

 the third-prize shearling at Kelso lent his aid ; and 

 the shearling with which Mr. Malcolm himself bore off 

 the same honours at Battersea was sold at the annual 

 roup for 20 11s. Nearly all the farmers round are 

 purchasers, and the highest average as yet has been 

 5 16s. 8d, for twenty-two. The horses are gene- 

 rally of the larger Highland sort, and one old mare 



