Derivation of the Domestic Polled Breeds. 793 
tendency to fatten more kindly, to yield a greater or smaller quan- 
tity of milk, to lay fat on a particular part of the body, to produce 
more or less tallow, to be more or less hardy, or any other peculi- 
arity. Even accidental blemishes may thus be perpetuated. If a 
hornless individual be born of a hornless breed of creatures,! this 
may give rise to a whole tribe of hornless beasts of that kind, 
which will propagate their like with as little deviation as takes 
place in the original stock. If a kind of creature that usually 
carries two horns chance to produce one with three, four, or six 
horns, you may thus obtain a breed having many horns. Thus we 
are able to account for those families or breeds of domestic animals 
which differ in regard to certain particulars of the kind above spe- 
cified, and which, when once introduced [or appearing] into a cer- 
tain district, have a tendency to continue themselves in that district 
for a great length of time if considerable pains be not taken to alter 
it. The means of altering such a breed are, however, from the facts 
here stated, clear and obvious; nor can it be effected with certainty 
but by a change of blood, or an intermixture of breeds. If the 
qualities of the peculiar breed are excellent, the means of improv- 
ing it are equally obvious, the selecting of the best individual of 
that breed, and which have the wished-for qualities in a higher 
degree than the ordinary, to breed from; and, if they be done with 
ease and judgment, its effect will be certain and by no means liable 
to any kind of doubt.” The reference in the Index to the above 
passage is: “ Hornless breeds of cattle, how produced.” The 
above affords a good deal. In the first place Dr. Anderson 
regarded cattle without horns a blemish. This would prove that he 
was unacquainted with any other polled breeds, if such there were, 
in Scotland. If he had, he would not have been able to regard 
it as a blemish. Secondly, that these polled creatures had continued 
in that district for a great length of time, and had occurred indige- 
nously previously to his advent in the country at any rate, which 
would take us back to the beginning of the century (1700). 
‘I would direct attention to the use of this word creatures, which 
Sounds so peculiar to an old country man, and to the new comer to this 
country, for I found it used pronounced “ critturs’’ to describe cattle. 
Thus in America the original usage of the word is maintained, like so 
many others. Indeed, as I show, from the Index reference, Dr. Ander- 
Son uses the word, also, to describe cattle. 
