150 



Scientific Proceedings, Eoj/al Duhlin Society. 



been worn off by time, "the liorns were made tliis time of lead, lest she 

 should ever again be reduced to the condition of a polled beast.'" Grimm's 

 drawing of the original figure shows a hornless eow.- 



The Diirliam Cow. 



On the other hand. Dean Kitching informs us tliat " there is at the British 

 Museum a map of Durham City, a.d. 1594 [probably]. In the corner stands 

 the Dun Cow — with a pair of fine horns ! " 



Tlie North-east of Scottcnut. — Although the evidence is fullest as regards 

 Forfarshire and Aberdeenshire, because these two counties took the 

 chief part in evolving the present Aberdeen-Angus breed, tliere is little 

 doubt but that hornless cattle have existed for centuries round the north- 

 east coast from Forfarshire to Morayshire, probably farther. 



The earliest evidence of hornless cattle in the north-east of Scotland lias 

 not hitherto been seriously noticed ; but, in view of the other evidence 

 to be brought out in this paper, it may now be taken with confidence. 

 It consists of about a dozen stone slabs, bearing chiselled-out figures of 

 bulls, dug up on the shores of the Moray Firth, chiefly at Burghead 

 in Morayshire, which at one time was a Norse or Danish stronghold. The 

 surfaces of these stones are so worn down by time that the lines of the figures 

 cannot be followed easily by the naked eye, but they can still be brought 

 out by careful rubbings on paper. The difficulty has been to determine 

 whether the lines rising from the bulls' heads were meant to represent horns 

 or not; but a careful examination of a number of these rubbings shows that 



Bates's " Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Shorthorns," 1897, p. 45. 

 See Hutchinson's " History of Durham," 1785, vol. ii., p. 226. 



