Beport on the Cattle Exhibited at Windsor. 649 
stock of Argyloshire and the Western islands, belongs the reputa- 
tion of being the representative of the primitive breed of North 
Britain. 
The origin of the two polled breeds, the Galloway and 
Aberdeen-Angus, is very obscure. Whether a sport, one sport 
or more than one sport, from the horned original to the poll, 
occurred in Scotland, or whether the polled cattle of Scotland 
were disinherited of the horn through variation which originated 
elsewhere, we have no record : neither have we any certain 
evidence of the prior antiquity of the hornless character in the 
north-east or in the south-west of Scotland. Although a very 
marked contrast is seen when the Highland and Aberdeen -Angus 
types are placed side by side, the difference may be graduated 
by placing between them a specimen of the Galloway type, which 
has strong points of resemblance to both the other types. The 
notice of this graduation of typical characteristics by no means 
forces upon us the conclusion that the Aberdeen-Angus breed is 
derived from the Highland through the Galloway, but it suggests 
the possibility that all three breeds are in their Scottish origin 
akin, and that, with or without the help of alien blood, new types 
have been evolved on Scottish soil in the course of centuries. 
The Ayrshire type, by its distinctness, tells its own tale of 
derivation from a different source. 
Abekdeen-Angus Cattle. 
Whether the unalloyed descendants of an ancient race of cattle 
in Scotland, or the representatives of an ancient race pZws an 
occasional cross — how and when they lost the horn and developed 
the characteristic crown — these and other historical siseculations 
may pass. At best, the various suggestions hitherto put forward 
are but guesses, still unconfirmed, still uncontradicted. That a 
breed of cattle may have existed in almost primeval purity in the 
Scottish fastnesses is an assumption which we cannot deny. 
On the other hand, that Scottish cattle-lifters did come over the 
border, not once nor twice, but frequently during several centu- 
ries, and that English herds were driven before them — somewhere 
into Scotland, but how far into Scotland we cannot tell — is more 
than an assumption. Whether the English cattle were all eaten 
in the festivities after a sjiccessful raid, or whether they were 
distributed about Scotland, and eventually absorbed into the 
" native " breeds, history does not say. Whatever its source or 
sources, the Aberdeen-Angus breed of to-day is one of the first 
beef breeds in the world, and has a very considerable part in the 
meat production, not only of its own country, but of other lands, 
