The example Fig. 43 is one of a class where the ornamentation is very elaborate. The design is formed mostly by the chisel and hammer, and even in the internal mechanism the file appears scarcely to have been used. Many of these fine locks exist, but never have any armourer's mark on them; the mechanism, however, points to their Spanish origin. Works of this description were found in Spanish locks to the latter end of the eighteenth century. In both English and French flint-locks the mechanism was on the inside of the lock-plate, and a tumbler connected the hammer with the action of the mainspring. A later improvement was to add a bridle to give two bearings for the tumbler axle, and a small swivel connecting the tumbler with the mainspring, both of these improvements ensuring greater smoothness in the action. This form of improved mechanism was continued in the percussion lock, after the use of a flint was discontinued, and, indeed, the hammer used in the first military breechloader generally employed in our army, the Snider, was acted on by mechanism of much the same sort. [Illustration: FIGS. 43, 44.--_Highland Pistols. Collection of Major Farquharson._] Figs. 43 and 44 show specimens of the Highland pistol, a class which stands quite by itself. These weapons no doubt were evolved from the early steel wheel dags in common use in Germany. Many Highlanders were to be found in the armies of other European nations, whence they probably took the fashion and also procured their firearms. The earliest weapons of the sort, as well as the latest, were all of steel (or rarely brass). The stocks had a heart-shaped butt, and were furnished with snap-hance locks. There is one of this description, undoubtedly a Scotch weapon, in the armoury in the old castle of Nürnberg, where the arms have always been stored, belonging probably to one of the many Scotch officers employed in Germany during the wars of the seventeenth century. Later on the butt of the pistol assumed a claw form and the ordinary flint-lock was employed, the mechanism, however, being of a distinctive sort, possibly of Dutch origin. The latest of these pistols have a rounded butt as in Fig. 44. The ornament found on the back of the hammer in Fig. 43 is not to be seen in any other class of lock.