Polled Aberdeen and Angus Cattle. 
355 
of the eighteenth century, and bred polled cattle. Sometimes 
the bulls were black and sometimes brindled, but they were 
always polled. My father would not have bred from a horned 
bull, and he always disliked horned cattle. He and my uncle 
took prizes for Black Polled cattle at the Shows of the Vale of 
Alford Agricultural Society, formed soon after 1830." 
Much more evidence of a similar kind could be given, but in this 
short paper anything like a complete history of the breed is out of 
the question. Enough has been presented to indicate the nature of 
the evidence available in support of the statements that in Angus 
and Buchan, and other low-lying parts of the north-east of Scot- 
land, there was a native polled breed of cattle {native in the sense 
that they were found to exist in these parts at the earliest date 
to which history and tradition carry us back), and that the 
Improved Polled Aberdeen and Angus Cattle are the lineal 
descendants of that native polled breed. The two strongholds 
of the native polls were Angus in Forfarshire, and Buchan in 
Aberdeenshire. The Angus people called them " Doddies," the 
Buchan people " Humlies ;" and thus their celebrated offspring 
have come to be regarded by many as having a double origin, 
as being a combination of two distinct breeds ; while the fact is, 
that they are the descendants of one well-defined race — the 
ancient polled cattle of the north-east of Scotland — a breed 
popularly known at the commencement of the present century 
as Angus Doddies and Buchan Humlies. 
It may be interesting here to refer to one of the several erro- 
neous notions that are loosely indulged in with regard to the 
origin of the improved polled breed, especially in so far as their 
Aberdeen connection is concerned, namely, that the Aberdeen- 
shire polled cattle are descended from a race of horned cattle 
once famous in that county. Even more than a hundred years 
ago the black horned cattle of Aberdeenshire were 'quite cele- 
brated all over both England and Scotland, their size and 
fattening properties having been their distinguishing properties. 
To some extent these famed cattle were derived from the inter- 
mixing of the local polled and horned breeds ; but it is well 
authenticated that in a large measure their superiority over con- 
temporaneous breeds was due to an infusion of southern blood 
into the Aberdeenshire strains. In the north-east of Scotland, 
the lion's share of the farm work now accomplished by horses was 
done by oxen down to a comparatively recent date — in many 
parts far into the present century. The native breeds having 
then been too small, the landed proprietors and larger farmers of 
Aberdeenshire (as well as of the north-east generally) obtained 
their work-oxen from the south of Scotland, for many years from 
the Lothians, and afterwards from Fifeshire. When — more than 
