288 Saddle and Sirloin. 



written out in Mr. Whitaker's own neat hand, and 

 with his red ink annotations, which now almost 

 need a microscope to decipher. It would seem as if 

 he had walked about for years with the images of 

 every great cow or bull firmly fixed in his retina. 

 Of Duchess First he merely says " fair ;" of Duchess 

 Second " droops ;" while Hubback comes in among 

 other criticisms for "flank and twist wonderful, 

 shoulders rather upright." Three-fourths of the 

 original list of subscribers have gone to their rest ; 

 and so too, within the last twelve years has the 

 patriarchal James Ward, R.A., who condescended to 

 draw Maria and Miranda on stone for the work, and 

 speculated on the coming fortunes of a certain young 

 self-taught mail-driver, Herring of Doncaster, who had 

 also borne a hand and sketched the heifer " Daffodil 

 in two positions." A few years later, the present editor 

 of the Herd-Book, then a mere lad of fifteen, fresh 

 from his school studies of the Durham Ox and Coates's 

 Driffield Cow, was sent over to paint Charles (878) for 

 the second volume, and, like Culshaw, whose boyish 

 embassy to the same spot has still to be told, he dates 

 his chief Shorthorn impressions from that weary jour- 

 ney, two-thirds on foot, and a third in the carrier's 

 cart. In 1844, after the death of Coates junior, he 

 took up the Herd Book with Volume 6th, and has 

 now brought it up to the 18th, besides revising and 

 reprinting the first five volumes of the series. No man 

 ever threw more energy into a great task, or made 

 such a succession of brilliant sale averages as he has 

 done for twenty years past. Tim Metcalfe, the herds- 

 man, was also a remarkable character in the Green- 

 holme drama. He " knew 'em when he saw 'eni' as well 

 as any man, but as he never knew his alphabet, he 

 invariably clenched the matter with, " Give me f pedi- 

 gree, and I'll tak it home fit maister." No wonder 

 then that the taste for Shorthorns should have 

 gradually spread along the Wharfe, and not only 



