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your drove, doddies most of them—a big man was with themnone of your kilts though, but a decent pair of breeches-D' ye know who he may be ?'-'Hout aye-that might, could, and would be Hughie Morrison-I didna think he could hae peen sae weel up. He has made a day on us; but his Argyleshires will have wearied shanks. How far was he pehind ?'" etc.'

In the same chapter is the following sentence:

"Ye ken, Highlander, and Lowlander, and Border men are a' ae man's bairns when you are over the Scots dyke."

How applicable is not the above to my contention as to the different Scotch breeds, on their crossing the Scots dyke? There was no distinction, all the horned Highlanders were Kyloes, and all the polled Lowlanders were Galloway, and Kyloes and Galloways were all Scots. Doune was in the centre of Caledonia, the region from whence class 2 of Mr. Marshall were drawn.

What influence was it that made doddies and humlies of so live an interest to Sir Walter? He was a personal friend and guest of Mr. Hugh Watson, Keillor, Forfarshire, the celebrated breeder of polled Angus cattle. It was undoubtedly from this association that Sir Walter got his knowledge of the polled cattle of his native country. Nowhere does he mention the term by which they became known-" Galloway"-in connection with cattle at all, though he uses this term in connection with the nags of that region; and no man was better acquainted with the border counties than he. He always uses the terms-to describe his polled cattleby which were exclusively known the Angus and Buchan polls (doddies and humlies). From this it may be inferred that he knew that these descendants of the original polled cattle of Scotland were exclusively an appurtenance of the great Caledonian region.2

Rev. James Hedrick, A.M. (first editor of the Highland So

To prove how early the cattle trade from the north to the south existed, I quote the following:

"In those days [about 1560 A.D.] a drover of the name of Rory, a wealthy man, and doing a large trade, was in the habit of lodging with Allancuaich [in Braemar] on his way to and from the south markets, after an unusually great sale and large profit at Amulrie." (Legends of the Braes of Mars. By John Grant, Glengairn.)

2 See a paper by the author, "Origin of Scotch Breeds of Cattle," in Agricultural Gazette Almanac, 1887.

ciety's Transactions), author of the "Agricultural Survey of Angus-shire," published in 1813, writing twelve years later, said,—

"The polled are not confined to Galloway. I have frequently seen individuals without horns among the cattle in various parts of the Highlands and isles."

This is very important evidence. But, further, and even more interesting, William Aiton, author of the "General View of the County of Ayr," dated 1811, writes (p. 412), referring to the horns of the various breeds of cattle, "the breed of Mull have none."

John Smith, D.D., in his "Survey of Argyleshire," says of the cattle, "Few of them are polled;" which indicates that polled ones did, however, occur.

Obliteration of a Modern Polled Race-Fife Polls.-Youatt, p. 117, says,—

"A breed of polled cattle has also made its appearance in Fife, possessing all the good qualities of the horned, with even superior propensity to fatten, and much greater quietness and docility."

Professor Low, p. 333, says of them,

"Extending from Fifeshire westward to the Ochil Hills, the cattle are generally hornless, and of a size intermediate between the breeds of the Highland mountains and those of the plains. Some of these cattle, especially those of the Ochil Hills, are really good, and suited to the country in which they are reared, and merely demand that attention to the selection of the breeding parents which shall call forth their more useful properties."

Mr. Dickson, in his work on live stock dated 1851, but which also refers to the beginning of the century, says of this polled breed, it is "unlike any others in Scotland;" it "is of good size and substance, and rather coarse, but equally suitable for shipping. Lays on flesh very well, and seldom deceives the butcher in weighing." Dickson ranks this beed as one of the "four distinct polled breeds in Scotland."

Of them the late Charles Stevenson, editor of the North British Agriculturist, wrote, in 1863,—

"At no very distant date there existed, extending from the west of the Ochils to the east of the Lomond Hills, in the county of Fife, a very valuable breed of polled cattle for the dairy. The colors were brown, brown and white, black and white. As dairy

stock, they were equal to the Ayrshire in quantity, while the quality was superior."

"Highland Humlies."-In Mr. McCombie's early days "there was a race-starved vermin which were known by the name of 'Highland Humlies,' which I consider the worst of all breeds. No keep will move them much. At the top of these I must place those with the brown ridge along the back. They can be made older, but it takes more ability than I ever had to make them much bigger. Keep is entirely thrown away on them."1

The following extract officially and accurately summarizes the state of the polled breeds in Scotland in 1860. It is taken from the "Introduction-General View of Scotland," p. xiv. of Nelson's "Hand-Book to Scotland," by Rev. John M. Wilson, author of the "Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland”:

"Three breeds of hornless cattle, the Galloways, the Angus humlies, and the Buchan, grazing the districts from which they take their name, together with contiguous ones, are known in the English shambles. A large-horned breed, called the runts, common in Fifeshire and Aberdeenshire, serve chiefly for salted beef."

The Angus and the Buchan polls have long been amalgamated, as they are radically of the same race, territorially belonging to the same geographical Caledonian region, so distinct and separate from the southern and Border region.

Curious Description of Orkney Cattle.-A manuscript of date 1529, in referring to the Orkney cattle, says . . . “the oxen be yoaked with cheats and haims and breachams, which they call weases, albeit they have horns." The last clause might lead one to suppose that the writer had only been accustomed previously to hornless cattle.

* Cattle and Cattle Breeders.

4th ed. By Wm. McCombie, of Tillyfour, M.P. (To be continued.)

RECENT LITERATURE.

Sixth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey.'The sixth annual report of the survey under Major J. W. Powell is issued two years after the period to which it refers, and hence the accounts of progress which the volume contains are somewhat antiquated by the time they reach the public. This, however, is presumably the fault of the government printing-office, and not of the survey. Old as the news thus is, a few data may not prove uninteresting. The annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1885, shows that the expense of the survey aggregated within a few hundred dollars of the appropriation of half a million. During the year, the topographical survey was completed and maps prepared for the engraver of fifty-seven thousand square miles of territory, at an average expense of three dollars per square mile. The usual administrative reports by the heads of the divisions appear in their proper sequence, and from them we learn that in the future relief-cuts are to be used as much as possible in the illustration of the publications of the survey,-a decision which is to be commended when such good results are obtained as in the present volume. This will render it possible to use the same cuts over and over again when it is necessary, and also places electrotypes at the disposal of the survey. All of the heads of divisions, with one exception, enumerate their assistants, other than clerical, by name, and detail the work upon which they have been employed. A similar course in the other instance would give credit to several workers to whom it is certainly due.

The accompanying papers are five in number. Mr. L. F. Ward discusses the "Flora of the Laramie Group," and describes, from the leaves alone, many species of fossil plants. Mr. J. S. Curtis describes his modification of Plattner's method of quantitative determination of silver in an assay. The new apparatus described reminds one of the mechanical stages found on some microscopes. The three remaining papers need a much more extended notice than our space will allow.

In Southwestern Wisconsin is found an area of about ten thousand square miles which exhibits no traces of former glacial action, while all around it, for several hundred miles in every direction, all the phenomena of former glaciation are abundant. This was, as it were, an island in the great sea of ice which covered the whole northern part of the continent. Messrs. Chamberlain and Salisbury have been studying this driftless area, and their accounts are given in this report. They are, apparently, painstaking researches upon all the phenomena exhib

Sixth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey to the Secretary of the Interior, 1884-85. By J. W. Powell, Director. Washington, 1885 [1887].

ited in the region, and, while one may not agree with all their conclusions, the paper will always have a value in connection with the question of several successive glaciations and of the formation of the loess. Their explanation of the cause of this driftless area is the same that has been advanced before,— a division of the continental ice-sheet by the high land to the north, and existence of lower channels to the right and left. This was supplemented by other influences the value of which it is difficult to estimate.

Professor Shaler's study of the phenomena exhibited by the sea-coast swamps of the eastern United States is also a valuable contribution to dynamical geology. The steps, as he traces them, in the formation of a salt-marsh are first, the deposit of mud by the currents in some sheltered spot, and next, the growth of eel-grass on the mud-flats thus formed. This in turn entangles still more mud, and soon the level is raised to where other plants can grow. This process is still further complicated by the formation of sand-beaches and sand-dunes, and of these two, or even more, may be formed in succession, broken here and there by openings for the drainage of the marsh behind.

Captain Dutton's paper on the "Geology of Mount Taylor and the Zuñi Plateau of New Mexico" gives the results of six years' studies in this region,-studies which are not easily reproduced in abstract, so strange is the region described. Here were found that peculiar type of volcanic action termed by Gilbert "laccolites;" dikes of volcanic material abundant around the edge of the plateau, but rare in its interior; carboniferous strata resting directly upon those of Cambrian age, and a series. of mountain-peaks and necks not easily paralleled in other parts of the world, other than this strange western region which the past twenty years have shown to be so wonderful from every geological point of view.

Packard's Fossil Arthropods.'-Dr. Packard has for some time been engaged in the study of fossil arthropods, and in these two memoirs gives us the results of his latest studies, the outlines of which have already been presented in the pages of the NATURALIST. The Syncarida, a proposed new group, is assigned a place intermediate between the decapods and tetradecapods. To the reviewer it would seem that the forms included are true Amphipoda, and that "Syncarida" can at most have but family rank. A wider knowledge of existing amphipods would have

"On the Syncarida, a hitherto undescribed Synthetic Group of Extinct Fossil Crustacea;" "On the Gampsonychidæ, an undescribed Family of Fossil Schizopod Crustacea;" "On the Anthracaridæ, a Family of Carboniferous Macrurous Decapod Crustacea;" "On the Carboniferous Xiphosurous Fauna of North America." By A. S. Packard Fifteenth and sixteenth memoirs of vol. iii. of the Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. 1887.

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