In considering the genealogies of the Highland clans we must bear in mind that in the early state of the tribal organisation the pedigree of the sept or clan, and of each member of the tribe, had a very important meaning. Their rights were derived through the common ancestor, and their relation to him, and through him to each other, indicated their position in the succession, as well as their place in the allocation of the tribe land. In such a state of society the pedigree occupied the same position as the title-deed in the feudal system, and the Sennachies were as much the custodiers of the rights of families as the mere panegyrists of the clan. As long as the Gaelic tribes and the governing and dominant race were of the same lineage, and regulated by the same laws, this system must have remained unaltered; but when the kingdom was formed by a combination of different races, and the influential class consisted of a feudal nobility, while the laws of the country were based upon feudal principles, the position of the Gaelic tribes must have been that of a people possessing a customary law, and an unrecognised social system opposed to the law acted upon by the governing authority, and the latter must always have prevailed in the long-run. When the conflict of these laws in regulating succession, and the frequent insurrections of the Gaelic population, with the confiscations which followed upon them, led to the breaking up of the Gaelic tribes, and to the severance of those ties which bound the septs or clans which had been developed within the tribe to each other, the pedigree would cease to be of value as between clan and clan. The competition between rival interests and rival races would lead to the gratification of vanity becoming the ruling motive, in order to maintain a _quasi_ superiority, and likewise, when the exigencies of their position required it, to a falsification and imposture in order to enable the clans to maintain their ground in a field of competition regulated by feudal principles. The pedigrees must then have been greatly influenced by those into competition with whom the clan families were thrown, and by the interests affected in consequence; and when the governing class belonged to a kindred but different race with a different nationality and nomenclature, there must always have been a tendency to assimilate their own traditions to those of the ruling powers. Till the ninth century the Highland tribes and the ruling powers were of the same race. During the two succeeding centuries these tribes appear to have remained intact, while the dominating race and the clergy were of a kindred race though of a different name and nationality, and the name of Scotia became transferred from Ireland to Scotland. Feudalism then commenced, and spread over the country, and the reigns of the kings of the second Scottish dynasty from the accession of David the First to the death of Alexander the Third was the period of