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VIII. 



THE COLOURS OF HIGHLAND CATTLE. 



By JAMES WILSON, M.A., B.Sc, 



Professor of Agricultm-e in the Uoyal College of Scieace, Dabliii. 



[PuUished Mat 15, 1909.] 



(Plate VII.) 



[N'oTE.— In the tables in this paper the colours of the parents are indicated by capital letters placed 

 above the columns showing the colours of their progeny. B stands for black, R for red, 

 Br for brindle, Y for yellow, D for dun, L for light dun, and j8 for brown or doiin.'] 



The Highland breed of cattle is of very mixed descent : more so, perhaps, 

 than any otiier British breed excepting the Longhorn, wliose genealogical 

 tree is closely parallel. Historically, the foundation consists of the old black 

 race which at one time inhabited the whole of Britain, while the additions 

 have come from difierent directions at times which cannot be fixed with 

 more than approximate accuracy. 



The earliest addition was the white cattle brought from the South of 

 Europe by the Eomans, which, if it did not reach the Highlands in Roman 

 times, did so before the Middle Ages. It is not asserted that there ever 

 were many white cattle in the Highlands, but that they were tliere is proved 

 by an occasional white reported at one time and another among Highland 

 cattle. It is also highly probable that the picturesque horns of the Highlander 

 are a legacy from the Roman cattle. 



It would be difficult to say which of the other additions was the first to 

 reach the Highlands ; but tlie red Saxon cattle were the first to reach Britain, 

 and had a handicap of several hundred years to wander from the English 

 Midlands to the South-Eastern Highlands before tlie other addition came in 

 at other points. Tiiat other addition was a dun-coloured^ race which, since it 

 survived in pockets round the coasts of Scotland and England till com- 

 paratively recent times, was pi-esumably of Scandinavian origin. 



' It was what is now called light dun, a kind of steely whity-grey which is as difficult to paint 

 as it is to describe. 



