THE WHITE CATTLE AND SHORT-HORNS. 87 



so prevalent among them." * After much inquiry, I 

 entirely concur in this opinion. 



Let me mention another circumstance which may 

 possibly throw some light on this question. Stanwick 

 Park, the property of the Duke of Northumberland, 

 and inherited by him from the Smithsons, is rather 

 more than two miles south of the River Tees, half-way 

 between Darlington and Barnard Castle. From the 

 duke's agent here, Mr. Charles Colling bought, in 

 1784, a Teeswater cow he called " Duchess." The 

 family came, in 1810, into the hands of Mr. Bates, of 

 Kirklevington, and are still very celebrated cattle, bear- 

 ing the same designation. Mr. Bates believed that he 

 had discovered a tradition that the ancestors of this 

 cow had been in the park at Stanwick, " in the pos- 

 session of the ancestors of the Duke of Northumberland 

 for two centuries "f before ; and the tradition appears 

 to have been confirmed, to a certain extent, by Lord 

 Prudhoej (afterwards fourth duke), who then lived 

 there. But this tradition, in its present form, is clearly 

 incorrect. No other good Teeswater had ever been 

 known to exist at Stanwick, though the most careful 

 inquiries were made by most competent persons, § and 

 Lord Prudhoe in vain sought among its old records for 

 information. The Smithsons, too, had possessed the 

 estate only a little more than a hundred years, obtaining 



Rev. H. Berry, in Touatt's " Cattle," chap. vii. 



t Mr. Bates added this to the pedigree of one of his " Duchess " cows, 

 when he entered her in the " Short-horn Herd-book," vol. v., p. 201. 



% Bell's " History of the Kirklevington Cattle," pp. 27, 28. 



§ Mr. Fawcett, of Childwick Hall, St. Albans, and Mr. Wood, himself 

 for many years a resident at Stanwick, both eminent breeders themselves, 

 and both the sons of well-known breeders, have each assured me that 

 many years since they made every possible inquiry with no satisfactory 

 result. 



