92 NOTES ON SOME EARLY POLLED CATTLE. 



The Cow Black Meg 766, and the Bull Panmure 51. 



Hundreds of polled animals, many of them among the 

 most famous of the breed, are descended from Mr Fuller- 

 ton's cow Black Meg 766, and Lord Panmure's bull Pan- 

 mure 51. The pedigrees of these two animals, as printed 

 in vol. i. of the ' Herd Book/ are altogether misleading. 

 Black Meg 766 has had placed before her name an 

 asterisk, the sign adopted to distinguish the Galloway 

 from the Aberdeen or Angus cattle, when the pedigrees of 

 both breeds were recorded in the same ' Herd Book,' and 

 Panmure 51 is said to have been out of Black Meg 766. 

 These are two very serious inaccuracies. The name of the 

 sire of Panmure is not given, and the whole antecedents 

 of these two celebrated animals are, so far as the ' Herd 

 Book ' entries go, shrouded in complete mystery. Breeders 

 of polled cattle are under a debt of gratitude to Mr Thomas 

 F. Jamieson, Mains of Waterton, Ellon, for having con- 

 ducted such investigations as have solved the difficulties 

 which arose from the erroneous entries of these animals. 

 Writing to us under date 9th February 1882. Mr Jamie- 

 son says : " When I occupied the post of Fordyce Lecturer 

 at Marischal College, Aberdeen, I devoted some attention 

 to the subject of polled cattle along with other matters, 

 and I found that all the best blood of the Aberdeen and 

 Angus doddies traced back to three fountain-heads viz., 

 1st, Mr Fullerton's Black Meg ; 2nd, the bull Panmure, 

 from Brechin Castle ; and 3rd, the Keillor Jocks. Unfor- 

 tunately the first volume of the ' Herd Book ' is a complete 

 mass of confusion in regard to the pedigrees and history 

 of these animals at least ; and I therefore considered my- 

 self very fortunate in getting from Mr Fullerton himself 

 authentic communications giving me all that he, the pos- 

 sessor of Black Meg and Panmure, knew about these 

 animals." Mr Jamieson has kindly furnished us with 

 the more important parts of Mr Fullerton's statements 



