50 IMPROVEMENT OF THE BEEED. 



ticularly good, had extraordinary coats of hair, and pecu- 

 liarly large, hairy, well-set ears." With these sixteen 

 females and two bulls, Mr Hugh Watson commenced the 

 systematic improvement of the Angus doddies — a work 

 which he prosecuted with distinguished vigour and success 

 till near the close of his life in 1865. It will be more 

 convenient to notice in a subsequent chapter the leading 

 families tracing to Mr Watson's herd. Several of these 

 have become extinct in the female line, but eight still 

 survive, although some are not generally recognised as 

 Keillor tribes. 



Mr Watson was eminently fitted for the important 

 work he took in hand. He was a man of surpassing in- 

 tellect, unlimited perseverance, and accurate judgment. 

 In many ways he would seem to have presented a strik- 

 ing resemblance to his great prototypes in the Shorthorn 

 world, the brothers Colling, who had commenced the im- 

 provement of Shorthorn cattle j ust twenty-eight years (in 

 1780) before the famous Keillor polled herd was founded. 

 It has often been remarked with truth that what the Col- 

 ings were to the Shorthorns, Mr Hugh Watson was to the 

 polled Aberdeen or Angus breed. The late Mr William 

 M'Combie of Tillyfour, M.P. — the only man who could be 

 set up as a rival to Mr Watson — bears the most generous 

 testimony to his eminence. In his work on ' Cattle and 

 Cattle-Breeders,' Mr M'Combie says : " Among those who 

 have distinguished themselves as breeders of Aberdeen 

 and Angus polled cattle, the late Hugh Watson, Keillor, 

 deserves to be put in the front rank. No breeder of Aber- 

 deen and Angus will grudge that well-merited honour 

 to his memory. We all look on him as the first great 

 improver, and no one will question his title to that dis- 

 tinction. There is no herd in the country which is not 

 indebted to Keillor blood." 



Unfortunately, there is little known of Mr Watson's 

 operations as a breeder. In his wide circle of intimate 



