THE ARDGAY HERD. 153 



deformed calf. Balwyllo Queen 445 cast calf, and none of 

 them ever bred again. Esmeralda, as before mentioned, 

 calved a dried-up foetus more than a year after time. The 

 only pure-bred cows left were Ehoda 566, and Bella, 

 belonging to two of the servants. These animals never 

 had the rinderpest. From the first came Bolshan 420, 

 and from the latter Southesk of Kelly. Bella is not 

 entered in the ' Herd Book/ but was by Eaven 270, out 

 of Bell of Kinnaird 328. Lord Southesk also bought a 

 heifer by Windsor 221, out of Gem 719, with whom he got 

 the first prize as a yearling at the show at Dundee. She 

 was afterwards sold to Lord Airlie. 



Ardgay. 



Mr John Collie, Ardgay, Forres, had a fine herd of 

 polled cattle, which was dispersed in 1866. In founding 

 the herd, Mr Collie, who was a very good judge, picked 

 up in the locality a number of animals which, although 

 of short recorded ancestry, were of more than ordinary 

 individual merit. Blinkbonny 315, one of these, was the 

 dam of Marion 308, the foundress of the Westertown Rose 

 family. Another was Dorrit 316, calved in 1850, bred by 

 the trustees of Mr Howitt, Eothiemay ; and it is in con- 

 nection with the descendants of this cow that the fame of 

 the Ardgay herd is chiefly perpetuated. Dorrit, when in 

 the possession of Mr Charles Kay, Earnside, bred in 1855 

 Hinda 322, whose sire is not recorded. In 1857, in Mr 

 Collie's possession, Hinda was put to Lord South esk's bull 

 Kinnaird 224 (a son of Cup-Bearer 59), and the produce 

 was Normahal 726. Normahal was again put to Kin- 

 naird, and in 1860 gave birth to Zara 1228 the second- 

 prize two-year-old heifer at Battersea in 1862. Zara was 

 bought by Mr M'Combie of Tillyfour, to whom she bred, 

 among others, the heifers Kate of Aberdeen, by Black 

 Prince of Tillyfour 366, and Matilda of Tillyfour 1175, 



