22 ORIGIN OF POLLED RACES OF CATTLE. 



lished towards the end of the first decade of the nineteenth 

 century, all testify that, at the time they wrote, the ma- 

 jority of the cattle in these districts were hornless. The 

 Eev. Mr Gillespie, editor of the ' Galloway Herd Book,' 

 says : " I think there can be very little doubt but that 

 the Galloway and the West Highland breeds of cattle 

 have sprung from the same parent stock at a very remote 

 date. There is a close resemblance, even at the present 

 day, between a well-bred polled Galloway and a West 

 Highlander minus the horns. Indeed the similarity is so 

 great, that M'hen we bear in mind the fact that previous 

 to the close of the eighteenth century almost all the 

 Galloways were horned, it is easy to understand how any 

 difference between the two types of animals may have 

 been produced by the different circumstances in which 

 they have long been placed, and the different treatment 

 to which they have been subjected." 



These and other considerations support the conclusion 

 that the polled Galloway cattle had originated in the 

 manner already set forth as the most likely source of horn- 

 less cattle — i.e., by the sudden appearance of one or more 

 animals without horns, and the preservation of the new 

 feature through selection in breeding. At what time the 

 first hornless animals may have appeared in Galloway we 

 cannot presume to say. We know from Youatt that about 

 1750 " only some of them were polled," and from the 

 several other writers named, that fifty or sixty years there- 

 after only a " very few " had horns. We may thus infer 

 that the absence of horns had been favoured by the Gal- 

 loway farmers, and that they had so managed their herds 

 as to ultimately " breed out " the horned strains. Indeed 

 we know, from authentic sources, that the farmers of 

 Galloway had strong inducement from exterior quarters 

 to cultivate and extend their polled herds. Shortly after 

 the union of England and Scotland in 1707, there arose 

 an active trade in cattle between the two countries ; and 



