I'm crying tears as big as cow patties that nobody got interested in "Kyloe".
"Wild cattle were a part of the native fauna of the forests, grasslands, and marshes
of post-glacial Scotland. Domestic cattle arrived with the first human colonists
about 5,000 years ago, and from these were developed the Kyloe
of the Highlands and Western Isles."
"Various classifications of the breed have been made, but it is thought that there are
really only two distinct classes, namely, the West Highland and the Highlander or mainland
Highlander. The former of these classes, sometimes designated by the term "Kyloe", is
found in its greatest purity in the Western Isles of Scotland, to which it no doubt was
at first confined. The term "Kyloe" would seem to indicate this, at least if one of the
common deviations of the word be accepted, namely, that it was applied to these
cattle because they used to cross the Kyloes or Ferries which separate the Western Isles
from the mainland of Scotland. Others think the word is merely a corruption of the Gaelic
word which signifies 'Highland', and if this be its proper derivation the term would lose
any significance.
The normal colour of the Kyloe was black, and in the recollection of some who are still
alive no other colour was known in the leading folds of the West. The pure Kyloe seems
also to have been smaller and shaggier than the Highlander, but whether thi was a
distinctive feature of this class of the breed or whether it arose from the cattle being
kept in a purer state and more exposed to the elements than the mainland cattle,
it is not easy to say. It is only within comparatively recent years that the colours
which are now so much in favour with breeders became common among the
West Highland Cattle, and the first animals of colour seem to have been introduced
from Perthshire. The Highlanders are common to the mainland of the North of Scotland
and also to the county of Argyll, and they seem generally to have been of larger size
than the west Highlanders and not uniformly of a black colour. It is not improbable that
their greater size may be attributed to the superior pasture of many of the cattle-raising
districts of the mainland and to greater care in rearing.
