YOUATT ON BUCHAN HUMLIES. 37 



years ago, and somewhat changed by change of climate 

 and soil. They are of a larger size than the homed, 

 although not so handsome. Of late they have been much 

 improved by careful selection from the best of their own 

 stock, and are becoming more numerous. In some dis- 

 tricts they are equal to or are superseding the horned 

 breed. They usually equal in weight the larger varieties 

 of the horned breed, but the quality of their meat is said 

 to be inferior. As they are, in a measure, occupying the 

 situation of the larger horned cattle, these, in their turn, 

 are intruding on the cattle of the hill country." Youatt 

 quotes from Mr E. Gray, who, writing in reference to the 

 Buchan cattle in the ' Quarterly Journal of Agriculture/ 

 says : " The best sort used to be polled, and some of them 

 that do not begin to have Ayrshire blood in them are so 

 still, and are of a dark or brown colour. The breed of 

 cattle in Buchan is peculiar to that part of the country." 



Youatt would seem to have favoured the idea that the 

 polled cattle which he found existing in Buchan i.e., the 

 lower parts of Aberdeenshire at the time he collected his 

 information between 1832 and 1835 were not really 

 " native cattle," but " Galloways introduced about thirty 

 years ago." We have been unable to discover any evi- 

 dence in support of this suggestion, and we possess such 

 strong testimony in opposition that we are compelled to 

 regard it as erroneous. Dr Keith has told us that in 1811 



o 



there were four distinct classes of cattle in the county 

 namely, (1.) "English or foreign breeds ;" (2.) "Scotch or 

 Fifeshire, mixed with native ; " (3.) " Native and unmixed 

 lowland or Aberdeenshire ; " (4.) " Native and unmixed or 

 Highland breed." Some twenty or twenty-four years later, 

 Youatt found the first, second, and fourth varieties still in 

 the county. The native unmixed Highland breed, he 

 says, existed " towards the interior and on the hills," but 

 he makes no mention of the native unmixed low country 

 breed. In its place in the lowlands, where it was left by 



