as the family chronicler tells us, we can hardly accept the evidence of tradition alone, when it is backed up by little or nothing from history. The first mention of military bagpipe music is given in accounts of the battle of Glenlivck, in 1594, but it is not until after 1600 that we find pipers mentioned as men of war by reputable historians. In 1627, says the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, a certain Alex. Mac Naughton of that ilk was commissioned by King Charles I. to “levie and transport twa hundredthe bowmen” to serve in the war against France. On January 15th, 1628, he wrote to the Earl of Morton, from Falmouth, where his vessel had been driven by stress of weather. In a postscript he said:— “My L.—As for newis from our selfis, our bagg pypperis and Marlit Plaidis serwitt us in guid wise in the pursuit of ane man of war that hetlie followit us.” The English of the postscript is, like the spelling, a little shaky, and I am not going to explain how it was possible to pursue “ane man of war that hetlie followit us,” or whether the pipers frightened the enemy or, as a cynical writer observes, “merely supplied the wind for the sails” and helped the ship away. The quotation, however, proves conclusively that there were soldiers in these days who wore the tartan—“Marlit Plaidis” is decidedly poetic—and had bagpipers in their company. “Besides,” continues the Transactions, “the piper Allester Caddel was followed by a boy,” his gillie presumably, and there were also “Harrie M’Gra, harper, frae Larg,” and “another piper.” In 1641, Lord Lothian, writing from the Scottish Army at Newcastle, puts in a word for the pipers:— “I cannot out of our armie furnish you with a sober fiddler; there is a fellow here plays exceeding well, but he is intollerably given to drink; nor have we many of those people. Our armie has few or none that carie not armes. We are sadder and graver than ordinarie soldiers, only we are well provided of pypers. I have one for every company in my regiment, and I think they are as good as drummers.” They were evidently better than fiddlers, anyhow. In 1642 there were regular regimental pipers, and it is believed that the 21st Royal Scots Fusiliers, then the North British Fusiliers, was about the first regiment which had them. When the town of Londonderry was invested in 1689 by James VII., two drums, a piper, and colours were allotted to each company of infantry, each troop of horse had a trumpet and a standard, and each troop of dragoons had two trumpets, two hautbois, and a standard. When the figures relating to the strength of the army are analysed, it is found that each regiment must have had fourteen pipers, fifty-six drums, five trumpets, and fourteen hautbois— that is, if the bands were at full strength.