surname A., and the historian himself knew nothing whatever of even an alleged connection between that family and the Clan B. Yet, after an interesting correspondence with that gentleman, and after some research on his part and mine, we found that various entries in public records, some relating to transference of land, others to marriages, others to political events of two or three centuries ago, clearly showed that a certain branch, or sub-division, of the Clan B., during the seventeenth century, was accustomed to style itself by the name now borne by the Family A., alternatively with the recognised surname of the clan. In short, the historian of the Clan B. recognised, as beyond a doubt, that, whatever the exact date of the separation, this Family A. was really (what it believed itself to be) a branch of the Clan B., whose surname it had once borne. It is to be remembered that the Family A. possessed not a single written evidence of this ancient connection; and the historian of Clan B. was previously quite ignorant of such a connection. What brought the fact to light was the existence of an oral tradition, reaching back two centuries or more, which, when accepted as a guide, led to the discovery of this truth.
In this instance, then, we see that the memory—what I may call the inherited or transmitted memory—of a family may go back correctly two or three hundred years; and not only, as in the case of the Suffolk peasant, agree with what has already been written down as "History", but, more than that, act as guide towards a "Supplementary History", which otherwise would never be written. And what applies to a family applies also, in this connection, to that larger family which constitutes a tribe or nation.
Two similar examples of the trustworthiness of tradition were recently cited by Sir Herbert Maxwell in his address inaugurating the last meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute: and these go much farther back than any of those I have mentioned. Sir Herbert referred in one instance to a cave on the Wigtownshire coast, which, ten years ago, apparently "differed in no respect from scores of others on the same rocky coast" " But local tradition had assigned to this particular cleft in the rocks the name of St. Ninian—St. Ninian's Cave. There was no evidence beyond tradition of religious occupation, but some local anti-
