26 EARLY HISTORY OF ABERDEEN OR ANGUS CATTLE. 



the English breeds. With the more truly Scotch races, 

 however, the case is different. It is hardly possible, we 

 think, for any one who has become acquainted with the 

 early history of the country, and with the works and cir- 

 cumstances bearing upon the origin and domestication of 

 British farm stock, to avoid arriving at the conclusion that 

 the foreign element could have had but very little to do 

 with the formation of the existing races of Scotch cattle. 



At present four distinct breeds have their headquarters 

 in Scotland namely, the Ayrshire, the polled Galloway, 

 the polled Aberdeen or Angus, and the Highland or horned 

 breed. The first a valuable dairy breed has undoubtedly 

 been to a large extent, if not wholly, derived from the in- 

 troduction of foreign cattle, probably either of the Alderney 

 or Holderness races. The other three are in the fullest 

 sense of the term native Scotch cattle. It is right, we 

 think, to regard them as the true lineal descendants of 

 those wild aboriginal cattle that roamed through the for- 

 ests and marshes of ancient Caledonia. Whether those 

 wild aboriginal Scotch cattle, from which the existing races 

 were derived, were of the urus or the longifrons type we 

 need not, perhaps could not, determine. It is at any rate 

 tolerably clear that they had all been of one variety. No 

 one, we imagine, who investigates the subject fully and 

 impartially, can escape the conviction that the three exist- 

 ing breeds of pure Scotch cattle had all originally been of 

 one type, had all sprung from one common source. Differ- 

 ing in minor points in accordance with the variances in 

 the climate and other conditions under which they had 

 been reared, they would still seem to have been so nearly 

 alike in all the chief characteristics which distinguish 

 races from each other, that they ought to be viewed as 

 belonging to one large well-defined group or type. Even 

 yet, after having passed through long ages of widely differ- 

 ent treatment, they present such strong similarities as 

 afford substantial proof of their reputed common origin 



