THE WEST HIGHLAND BREED. 
PLATE III. 
1. BULL, Four Years Old, Bred by Colonel M’Neil, of Barra: 
By a Bull bred by Mr Stewart, Chesthill. 
2. HEIFER, Bred by Alexander Campbell, Esq., of Caolis: 
By a Bull bred by Mr Campbell. 
PLATE IY. 
1. WEST HIGHLAND COW, Bred by Mr Maxwell, of Aross, Mull: 
By a Dun Bull bred by Mr Maxwell. 
2. YOUNG BULL, Eighteen Months’ Old, Bred by Mr Campbell, of Caolis: 
By a Black Bull bred by Mr Campbell. 
The great Primary district of Scotland, usually termed the Highlands, has been occupied, beyond the records of history and 
tradition, by vast herds of oxen, which have acquired the characters suited to a country of heaths and high mountains. These 
oxen, although varying insize and aspect with the nature and altitude of the country, present, with few exceptions, such characters 
m common, as to entitle us to refer them to a common origin. In the Zetland and Orkney Islands, there has existed a peculiar 
race, of which notice will be afterwards taken : but in all the rest of the Highlands, properly so called, the herds of oxen, how- 
evei distant in their habitat, constitute a group, connected by affinities which form a breed in the usual sense of the term. They 
are small in size; have horns in the male and female, turning more or less upwards at the points; have short muscular limbs, 
and are largely covered with hair. Their muzzle is usually black; they have dewlaps, and on the neck a ridge of coarser hair, 
forming a mane. Their colour is various, often black, sometimes brown, or a mixture of brown or black, and often mouse-dun. 
They are hardy beyond all the race of the cattle reared in the British Islands. Their size bears a constant relation to the sup¬ 
plies of natural food. In the Northern and Central Highlands it often does not exceed that of the calves of a few months old of 
the larger bieeds. Towards Argyleshire, on the south-west, including several of the Hebrides, where the production of the grasses 
and othei herbaceous plants is more abundant, the size of the animals becomes in a corresponding degree enlarged. In like 
manner, towards the eastern coast, where the mountains gradually pass into the lower country, the cattle gradually assume 
a character approaching that of the larger breed. 
All analogy leads us to infer, that the Mountain Breeds of Scotland are identical with those which formerly inhabited the 
woods of that country, just as we have seen that, in Wales, the domesticated race is identical with that which we term Wild. 
The physical circumstances of Scotland, however, have vastly changed even within the historical era. Like Norway, and other 
countries of the north of Europe, it was once covered with great forests, nearly all of which have disappeared, leaving the 
country destitute of shelter, and covered with heaths and the plants peculiar to peat. Under such circumstances, we must 
expect a corresponding distinction between the ancient cattle of the forests, and those which have for ages inhabited, in a 
state of semi-domestication, the bleak mountains of the country. 
The main difference consists in habits, the one class natural to a state of liberty, and the other of dependence ; yet this 
difference disappears when the animals are placed under similar circumstances. The wild breed, we have seen, becomes do¬ 
mesticated with the utmost facility; and the tame breed, if left in a state of entire liberty, assumes the more striking habits 
of the wild, the shyness, the swiftness, the concealment by the mothers of their young, and the like. In some of the few 
remaining pine forests of the north of Scotland, cows which are left to stray become as wild as deer, and are shot in the same 
manner. The white colour of the urus in many cases returns, so that we have almost a complete restoration of the ancient 
characters of the race. Individual cattle are sometimes met with amongst the droves of the Northern Highlands, resembling, 
even to the marking of the ears, the wild cattle. In the Outer Hebrides, a whitish-dun colour is pretty generally seen, re¬ 
sembling the colour of the cattle at Hamilton Park; and what is remarkable, the inhabitants of the Highlands, in all their 
traditions or fables of what are termed fairy-cattle , ascribe this colour to the animals.* 
The finest and largest of the native cattle of the Highlands are bred in Argyleshire and the neighbouring Islands. This 
character they owe to the greater development of their forms, to the superior herbage of the western coasts, but in a great degree 
# Mr. Macgillivray on the Outer Hebrides. 
