44 EAELY HISTOEY OF ABERDEEN OR ANGUS CATTLE. 



1823 or beginning of 1824, had a small farm rented along 

 with his glebe, and had a very excellent stock of cattle, 

 chiefly of the polled breed ; also the late Mr Harry 

 Lammond, of Pitmurchie, on his farm of Strathmore, 

 previous to his death in 1829, had polled cattle for many 

 years, always using a polled bull. The late Mr Eobert 

 Douglass, farmer, Culsh, had a polled bull in 1822, while 

 his cows were horned, as almost all the cows in Cromar 

 at that date were." 



We have thus set forth as briefly as possible the main 

 reasons which have induced us to regard the Aberdeen or 

 Angus polled breed not only as a direct branch of the 

 aboriginal cattle of Scotland, but also as indigenous to 

 the very districts which still form its headquarters, — the 

 north-eastern counties of Scotland, with Forfar and Aber- 

 deen as chief centres. The improved breed is derived 

 directly from the ancient polled cattle of Angus and 

 Buchan — two varieties of the same type, known in the 

 former as "Doddies," and in the latter as "Humlies." 

 And we have endeavoured to show the great antiquity of 

 the race in its hornless form in these two districts. We 

 believe that originally the loss of horns had arisen from 

 those spontaneous variations, or accidental or proper 

 sudden organic changes, spoken of by Darwin, Smith, and 

 Low, and referred to in the preceding chapter. Nothing 

 has been discovered that would enable us to fix the 

 precise date at which these changes had occurred. It has 

 certainly not been within the past hundred j'ears — pro- 

 bably not within the past two or three centuries. 



