DESCRIPTION OF TYPICAL POLL. 77 



We do not regard them as a recurrence of an original 

 characteristic, but rather as denoting contact in compara- 

 tively recent times with some horned race. We have seen 

 that both in Forfarshire and Aberdeenshire a race of 

 horned cattle has from time immemorial — at least as far 

 back as history and tradition carry us — existed alongside 

 the ancestors of the improved polled breed, the former 

 occupying the higher, and the latter the lower ground. 

 We have no record of any systematic combination of the 

 two races ; but a hundred years ago, and even less, farmers 

 saw no special advantage in keeping any breed absolutely 

 pure from generation to generation. They had not then 

 learned — what not a few personally interested in the sub- 

 ject have even yet to learn — the value of an unstained 

 pedigree. It may therefore be concluded that the polled 

 and horned varieties were in these days occasionally inter- 

 mixed. Moreover, we have it on record that, towards the 

 end of the last century and early in the present, the 

 Buchan " humlies " were crossed with Ayrshires, and the 

 horned breed of Fife and other races ; and the Angus 

 " doddies " with Ayrshires and other breeds. Youatt tells 

 us, no doubt on Mr Hugh Watson's own authority, that the 

 latter gentleman's famous Smithfield heifer, already re- 

 ferred to, " had a remote dash of Guernsey blood in her." 

 In these circumstances, and in view of the known tendency 

 of peculiarities in remote ancestors to display themselves 

 from time to time, it is only natural that now and again 

 an animal of the breed should appear with " scurs." They 

 are scarcely ever seen on females. Some strains are more 

 liable to them than others. In no family are they of 

 frequent occurrence, and in some they have never once 

 been observed. No effort should be spared to eradicate 

 them from the breed. No animal showing the least sign 

 of "scurs" should on any account be used for breeding 

 purposes. If we had to choose between the two evils, we 

 would much rather breed from a red animal than from one 



