142 VARYING COLOR-MARKINGS. 



oftentimes a change in environment, although almost 

 inexpressibly small, as illustrated on the cattle-farms 

 of the Pampas, 17 will cause the self color of a wild 

 or semi-wild breed to break ; and when the varied 

 conditions accompanying agricultural improvement 

 reached the cattle of Ayrshire, we find by our record 

 a greater change in the colors than had existed under 

 the less varied circumstances of agricultural stagna- 

 tion. 



As the spirit of travel and improvement reached 

 the upper class of inhabitants, we find the merits of 

 foreign breeds recognized, and an introduction of 

 other breeds, to a suificient extent, at least, to vary 

 the color-marks of the cattle ; and those colors which 

 became fashionable, and thus sought after with greater 

 avidity, would naturally become the most general. 

 We thus find at the present day the red and white 

 preponderating over the other colors, and the blacks 

 and whites far less common than in the past. 



Ho. Forsyth, not realizing the quick changes pro- 

 duced by the directing of general attention to certain 

 points, as profitable or fashionable, remarks upon the 

 rapidity of the diffusion of the improved breed, as a 

 singular circumstance in the history of breeding, and 

 speaks of the mottled breed as of different origin 

 from the common stock. 18 He describes this variety 

 in 1805 as being short in the leg, with fine-shaped 

 head and neck, and small and tapering horns, their 

 body deep but not so long, nor so full and ample in 



17 Azara, Quad, of Paraguay. 

 Beauties of Scotland, ii, 438. 



