144 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



lack of wave in the hair is considered to be a great objection in many 

 of the modern herds. 



As a rule, the color is black, but fashion now runs on yellows or light 

 duns and on brindles. A well-arranged herd should have a mixture of 

 colors, avoiding all those which indicate unhealthy thrivers, A well- 

 marked brindled bull is, however, all things being equal, a difficult one 

 to beat at any northern show. A modern prejudice exists in some quar- 

 ters against Highlanders being marked all over with white spots. They 

 are not considered, however, to be of impure blood, and Mr. Stewart, of 

 Tigh-Duin, one of the oldest and ablest authorities, is of opinion they 

 were looked upon by all breeders as marks of purity or superiority. 

 Possibly, too, he thinks that when the Ayrshires came into the High- 

 lauds the prejudice, which is a senseless one, arose. As regards the 

 absence of the wave in the coat of modern show-yard representatives, 

 it is held that it is to be accounted for by the growing desire to make 

 Highlanders grow big, and from too kindly treatment. The more ex- 

 posed the animal is the better does his hair grow. The whole points of 

 the animal have to be considered, indeed, in the light that he 1ms to 

 make a living in a bare and storm-exposed locality ; that, indeed, he has 

 to thrive where a Polled Angus or an Ayrshire would starve. The ques- 

 tion of thickness of skin, where fat, is one which is not left out of con- 

 sideration ; as in other animals, the sweetest beef being, as a rule, that 

 under the thinnest skin. But a West Highlander with too thin a skin 

 would not thrive well on the side of a wind-swept hill. 



Though the West Highlander is not a good milker, she as a rule al- 

 ways gives enough and more to suckle her calf, which is allowed to run 

 by her side till far on in the autumn, when it is weaned. Cows to calf 

 are generally housed from the end of November to the middle of Janu- 

 ary, according to the weather and dates of calving. Young and yeald 

 cattle, possibly, do better when wintered out with open sheds for shel- 

 ter erected in the fields. Thousands, indeed, in some localities are never 

 housed at all, unless snow is deep, and even then they thrive tolerably 

 well if a little hay is given them, and they have some little shelter from 

 a bit of woodland or the projecting side of some hill. When first put 

 in in May they are fed upon straw or the coarsest of the meadow hay ; 

 after calving, upon meadow hay supplemented with turnips. When in 

 finest bloom the West Highlander is indeed a perfect picture; and that 

 is generally in the three last months of the year. His coat of hair is 

 then at its best, and he looks every inch a monarch, prepared to fight 

 and wrestle with the north wind. 



Possibly on the richer pastures of the Lowlands he would not look so 

 well. Still at all times he looks by far the most noble of the bovine 

 race. For parks he therefore is in good demand, and it is possible that 

 he may find a home in every demesne where his picturesque appear- 

 ance becomes well the woodland scenery. No doubt in many places of 

 the Highlands he has been supplanted by the Ayrshire, Shorthorn, 

 and the Polled, but where herbage is thin and scant and there has to 

 be some mountaineering to get it, Donald Buidhe and Duncan Bnadh 

 will hold their own. It was thought by many that the West High- 

 lander would have well suited the ranches of America, but what is 

 wanted there is not animals to increase the weather-defying qualities, 

 so to speak, but to promote the tendency to make beef, the Texan stock 

 possessing many of the powers of endurance for which the West High- 

 lander is noted. 



Noted herds of West Highland cattle. Of the most noted herds which 

 at present are kept very pure in the Highlands may be mentioned that 

 of Bossie belonging to Lord Kinnaird. This herd was formed four years 



