178 THE CATTLE OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



trace the origin of any distinct breed of cattle, because climate, 

 soil, treatment, and other conditions combine through time to 

 impress special physical characteristics ; but there can be no 

 doubt that the horned, shaggy, hardy, and comparatively small 

 breed of cattle now best known as the West Highland, has for 

 ages been the breed peculiar to the mountainous districts of 

 Scotland, although it is now chiefly confined to the counties 

 of Argyll, Inverness, and parts of Eoss, Nairn, Perth and 

 Dumbarton. 



Until about a hundred years ago, the mountains of the north 

 and west of Scotland were depastured with " black cattle," as 

 the Highland breed is still frequently called from black having 

 long been their prevailing colour ; but from that period they 

 have been gradually displaced by flocks of sheep. Previous to 

 that time the stock of a Highland farmer consisted of cattle, 

 horses, goats, and a few sheep, the goats and sheep being 

 generalty penned at night, and the remains of those " pens " 

 are now frequently seen in the form of grassy mounds or the 

 foundations of ruined walls on the green sites of the old 

 ** shealings " or summer quarters of the Highland tenant of 

 olden times. About the end of May the women and children 

 migrated with the cows, ewes, and goats to the " shealings," 

 always located in the grassiest and most sheltered glen on the 

 holding, and there they remained till harvest time, making 

 butter and cheese in abundance, the men coming and going 

 between the home in the strath — where the tillage, such as it 

 was, had to be attended to — and the summer quarters in the 

 mountains. The grazings were usually held in common by a 

 number of tenants, and a " shealing" therefore formed a small 

 hamlet of huts, chiefly built of turf on a stone foundation, with 

 an earthen floor, and with beds of heather, and generally with 

 such sanitary arrangements as would now call for an inspection 

 from the " local authority " of the district, but yet, as Burns 



says, 



Buirdly cliiels and clever hizzies 

 Were bred in sic a way as this is. 



This migration enabled them to get the benefit of the high 

 and distant pastures and to save the grass in the valleys for 

 iay and winter food for the stock. But the provision made 



