general colour is yellow, comprehending the brindled, dark red and silver-coloured yellow."[1] Among Forfarshire horned cattle "the prevailing colour is black, but with more admixture of other tints: some have white spots on the forehead, and white on the flanks and belly. There are more brindled cattle than in Aberdeen; some are dark red, and others of a silver yellow or dun. A few are black with white hairs intermixed; and occasionally a beast is seen that is altogether white, with the exception of a few black hairs about the head."[2] Youatt makes no kind of reference to the Aberdeenshire polled cattle, but of the horned ones he writes, "The colour is usually black, but sometimes brindled."[3] Macdonald and Sinclair tell us that "Formerly, both in Angus and Aberdeen, the breed[4] embraced a variety of colours as well as difference in size. Black, with some white spots on the underline, was the prevailing colour. Some were brindled—dark red and black stripes alternately; others were red; others brown; and a few what Youatt called 'silver-coloured yellow.'"[5] An early nineteenth-century Banffshire writer tells us that, with the dealers who came to Rathven for cattle, " The favourite colour is pure black. The brindled ranks next in esteem, and the
