652 Beport on the Cattle UxMhited at Windsor. 
Two remarkable drawbacks, wliich tke breed has victoriously- 
passed, have occurred iu the course of its history. The Herd- 
book was contemplated, and the collection of materials com- 
menced, about the year 1842 ; but, like the Shorthorn Herd- 
book a generation earlier, the Herd-book of Scotch Polled cattle 
had a prolonged incubation. At length the collected materials 
" saw the light," but too literally, for they all perished in the- 
flames of the Highland Society's Museum in 1851. 
Six years later, on the initiative of the Earl of Southesk, 
joined by other leading breeders, Mr. Edward Ravenscroft 
began the work afresh, and in 1862 issued that volume which 
has been the subject of much unfavourable comment. The 
difiiculty of his task and its discouraging antecedents must be 
fairly taken into account ; and when the value of a beginning, 
even if it be not the best possible beginning, is considered, a 
debt of gratitude to the first editor will be owned by all interested 
in the progress of Aberdeen- Angus cattle. The copyright of 
the work was transferred to Mr. Alexander Eamsay, of Banff, 
and in 1871, when a meeting of breeders decided to proceed 
with its issue, he and Mr. H. D. Adamson, of Balquharn, agreed 
to carry it on. Ably edited volumes were from that time issued, 
a few of the earlier containing the pedigrees of Galloway cattle ; 
but the Galloway breeders formed a Society and took over 
the Galloway portion of the work, the Aberdeen-Angus 
breeders forming a separate Society under the Queen's patronage 
in 1879, acquiring the copyright of the Herd-book and appoint- 
ing Mr. Ramsay as their secretary. Messrs. James Macdonald 
and James Sinclair, in their standard liistorij of Polled Aberdeen 
or Angus Cattle, record the circumstances and particulars more 
minutely than it is possible to give them here. 
The second drawback was of a graver nature — the rinderpest 
in 1865, whereby many fine herds were ruined and many more 
greatly reduced. The complete recovery of the Aberdeen- Anguses 
from the verge of extermination — for it amounted to that in a 
great part of the area which may be called, in the chronicles of the 
breed, classic ground — was marvellous. The restoration, accom- 
plished quietly, steadily, yet within a wonderfully short time, with 
characteristic Scottish thoroughness, reflects the greatest credit 
upon the breeders. 
A passing allusion to the subsequent extension of the breed, 
at home and abroad, to its sudden enormously great rise in 
selling value a few years ago, chiefly in consequence of the com- 
petition of American buyers, and to its progressive excellence at 
the English Shows of the last five-and-twenty years, will indicate 
the details, too lengthy for this report, wanted to fill iu the out- 
