what is now called popular education, might have developed into an exact science, has been smothered by nineteenth century progress, and is now known only to piping enthusiasts and students of the antique in our national life. Various attempts have been made to construct a theory which would explain the system, but none is thoroughly satisfactory. Leaving the mystery of _Canntaireachd_, we come to the time when pipe music was first written in ordinary notation. The piece known as “The Battle of Harlaw” was played at that encounter in 1411; but it is significant that the oldest copy of the music extant, supposed to date from 1620, is not adapted for the bagpipe. The earliest known attempt to write pipe music in ordinary notation was made in 1784 when Rev. Patrick Mac Donald, Kilmore, Argyllshire, included in a collection of Highland Vocal Airs four pipe tunes. In 1803 the same author published a “Treatise” on the bagpipe, written by his brother, Mr. Joseph Mac Donald. This contained one tune, suited for beginners. Some time after the ’45—it must have been a considerable time—Mr. Donald Mac Donald, bagpipe maker, Edinburgh, was employed by the Highland Societies then existing to collect and note down as many pibrochs as he could find. In these days the mysteries of correct time were known to few and those of metre to fewer; but Mac Donald started with a brave heart, and to him as much as to the hereditary pipers the Highlands is indebted for the preservation of much of its pipe music. He collected mostly in the west country, and it is noticeable that the great majority of tunes now existing are west country tunes. The east Highlands, doubtless, had its own pipe music, but for want of a collector most of the airs have been lost. “Craigellachie,” the gathering of Clan Grant, is the only notable exception. Mac Donald’s first volume contained twenty-three pibrochs, but the exact date of its publication is unknown. In 1806, we are told in Angus Mac Kay’s book, Donald Mac Donald was voted the thanks of the judges at the annual competition in Edinburgh for having “produced” the greatest number of pipe tunes set to music by himself. His book, however, does not seem to have been published then, for from internal evidence (there is no date) it is obvious that it did not see the light before 1816. In the volume he promised to give histories of the tunes when he published a second instalment. A long time after he sent the manuscript of his second volume to Mr. J. W. Grant of Elchies, then in India, with a plaintive letter asking him to accept it as no one had shown so much interest in it as he had, and the publication of the first volume had nearly ruined him. The manuscript is now in the possession of Major-General C. S. Thomason, R.E., a grandson of Mr. Grant, and, it is hoped, will yet be published.