The first is in regards to playing in file, which is generally acknowledged to be the most difficult formation in which pipers can be placed. This will become apparent when notice is taken of the fact that the drones of the player immediately in front drown to a considerable degree the sound of the player’s chanter. It is therefore only by listening carefully to the different parts of the tune, and watching the marching swing of the pipers in front, as well as keeping the regular step, that one can decide whether the performers are adept players or not, and, as efficient pipers know, such performances require long practice and confidence. Then it sometimes happens that a central piper wanders into the wrong part, thus knocking the pipers in front and behind completely out. There at once ensues a stampede, so to say, no one being able to detect who the erring piper is. This is one of the occasions when the pipe-major looks ferocious, for, being in front, he is powerless to rectify matters, and is compelled to march on and listen to the row. The discordant notes will, of course, continue unless the defaulters and others who are “put out” have confidence enough to stop and catch up the tune at its proper place. Failing this, the pipe- major’s only alternative is to form up his men behind the senior officer’s chair as quickly as possible, and at once strike into the next tune in his programme. Blunders of this sort, it is only right to state, are usually committed by nervous men or beginners, but seldom through carelessness. Again, when pipers are performing this duty, waiters who, in the exercise of their own functions, are eager to serve their guests, often bump against or unintentionally obstruct the pipe-major. In some cases the chanter is knocked out of his hand, thus causing a temporary derangement as the pipers swing round in their course. Pipers are sometimes called upon to go into queer places. For instance, let us take the huts at Aldershot and elsewhere. Here the pipers start from the outside or from the kitchen, and wend their way round corners and through very narrow and low doors, which necessitate their marching in a crouching position in order to prevent the big drone coming in contact with the top of the door. As they enter the mess-room, they are invariably obstructed by the inevitable draught-screen, which some one has neglected to draw aside at the proper time. “Through an obstruction of this kind,” writes a pipe-major of one of the Highland regiments, “an accident happened to myself on the first occasion that I, as a pipe- major, went round the table to play a pibroch in my regiment. I started in an adjoining room, and as I entered the mess-room door, immediately behind the draught-screen, the latch caught the ribbons of the outside drone and pulled the pipes off my shoulder. This caused me to make a few ‘boberechims,’ and I stopped. This being my maiden tune as pipe-major in