4 
1887] Hornless Ruminants. 1087 
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vie with some of the best modern improved races so much 
_ admired by stock-masters, and which are now being reintro- 
_ duced from England.” 
_ Low and Youatt have long notes on this Irish breed: 
once widely diffused. It is now scattered throughout the 
_ country, and is only found in some numbers in the Vale of Shan- 
non, They were of a light brownish color. They are superior 
_ in size to the Suffolk Duns, and equalling in this respect the 
: rclass of short-horns. The breed has probably been formed 
byan early mixture of Dutch cattle with some of the native 
_ faces. Had attention been directed to it at an early period, Ire- 
_ land would have possessed a true dairy breed, not surpassed by 
_ any in the kingdom.” 
Of this ancient polled Irish breed the authors of the “ His- 
_ Wry of Polled Aberdeen or Angus Cattle” quote from the /rish 
| Farmer's Gazette in one of its August numbers, 1847: 
“A relative of our own, deceased a few years ago at the age of 
one hundred and fourteen, had polled cattle in Ireland, and stated 
“at the same breed had been in possession of his great-grand- 
—fither some two hundred years before our informant was born. 
se cattle were chiefly black, and black and white on the back; 
Occasionally red, and brindled with white stripes; in some cases 
al white but the ears, which were red; and he believed there was 
¿Tany intermixture of English or Scotch blood among = 
the period he alluded to. They possessed the characters o! 
being reat milkers and good butter-producers.” 
= 
Large importations of these Irish polled cattle arrived as late 
1750 at Port Patrick, in Scotland, and met a ready sale. 
Solate as 1826 these Irish polls seem to have existed. Andrew 
: derson, son of one of the most extensive and spirited snaa 
* Dumfries-shire, thus writes of them (“ The Practical Grazier, 
1826) 
“Several black or dark-colored ones are to be found, igh 
An. brought to Dumfries market, are readily bought up by ttle 
„ate jobbers, who soon convert them into pagar Pi or 
“gy g them with such lots and passing their word alias: 
"0 the Purity of the whole.” 
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