Maclellan Lord Kirkcudbright bore as a crest, 'A dexter arm erect, the hand grasping a dagger, with a human head on the point thereof, couped proper,' In the reign of James II, of Scotland, a predatory horde of foreigners, who entered that kingdom from Ireland, committed great ravages in the shire of Galloway; whereupon a royal proclamation was issued ordering their dispersion, and offering, as a reward to the captor or killer of their chieftain, the barony of Bombie. Now it happened that one Maclellan, whose father had been laird of Bombie, (and had been dispossessed of it for some aggressions on a neighbouring nobleman,) was the fortunate person who killed the chieftain; thus singularly regaining his ancestral property. The crest originated in the circumstance of his having presented to the king the marauder's head fixed upon the point of a sword. The head is variously blazoned as that of a _Saracen_, _Moor_, or _Gipsey_, and the question might here be started, 'Who were the lawless band that made the inroad referred to?' The terms Moor and Saracen were in early times applied indiscriminately to Mahometans of every nation, but it cannot be supposed that these intruders were followers of the False Prophet, for we have no record of any such having found their way into regions so remote. Neither is it probable that they were the wild or uncivilized Irish, whose manners and language would have been recognized in the south-western angle of Scotland, which is only separated from Ireland by a narrow channel that could be crossed in a few hours. The most probable opinion is that they belonged to that singular race, the _Gipseys_, who first made their appearance in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and France, between the years 1409 and 1427. Admitting that a tribe of them found their way soon after from the continent into Ireland, it seems exceedingly likely that a detachment of that tribe should have crossed over to Scotland in the reign of James, between 1438 and 1460. As the Gipseys on their first settlement were black, and could be traced to an oriental source, and as they disavowed Christianity, they were very naturally considered as Saracens, by a rule analogous to that which makes all the inhabitants of Christendom Franks in the eyes of a Turk. I have made this little digression because this instance of a Gipsey's head is probably unique in British Heraldry, and because the tradition perfectly coincides in point of time with the actual ingress of the Gipseys into this part of Europe.