792 Derivation of the Domestic Polled Breeds. 
organized for the purpose of rectifying the mistake. There were 
about ten years between the two series. 
The first Survey of the Agriculture of Aberdeenshire, by Dr. 
James Anderson, of Monkshill, in the Buchan district, was pub- 
lished in 1794. The author never mentions horn or hornless in 
describing the two breeds that come in for notice. One of these 
can, however, be identified with the old long-horned Aberdeenshire 
breed, described as being fine and rich milkers; the other, men- 
tioned as the cattle of Buchan, which can be identified by the evi- 
dence of his own household as the native low-country polled 
Buchan. He gives good general testimony to the high character of 
the latter. 
James Anderson, LL.D., was born near Edinburgh, 1730; died 
in London, 1808. He farmed extensively in the Buchan district 
of Aberdeenshire. He was a voluminous writer, and is thus 
referred to by Darwin (“ Variations of Animals and Plants,” second 
edition, Vol. I.): “Another ingenious writer, though not a natur- 
alist, with a bold defiance of everything known on geographical 
distribution, infers that the sheep of Great Britain alone were the 
descendants of eleven endemic British forms!” Yet he was quoted 
largely by others. Having resided so long in Buchan, it seemed 
incredible that such a man® such a ready observer, even though not 
a naturalist, should have escaped noticing, in some way, the special 
peculiarity —as hornlessness was apparently to him—of the cattle of 
that region, named, indeed, from that peculiarity itself, Buchan Hum- 
lies, from time immemorial. So it appeared to the general student. 
But, for the reasons mentioned, it appeared to me that he must have 
made some such allusion. So I carefully examined all his works 
likely to contain anything of the nature sought. In his “ Recrea- 
tions in Agriculture and Natural History, etc.” completed in S1% 
volumes, I find him descanting thus (p. 67, Vol. I., published 
1799, “ On Varieties of Animals: an enquiry into the nature of that 
department of Natural History which is called Varieties among 
Animals, etc., with some cursory hints upon the same term as 
applied to Vegetables”): “If a chance individual be produced 
that is of a large size, or particular make of body, the descendants í 
that individual, if mated with one having similar peculiarities, will 
be of the same kind, The same thing will happen if it have 4 
