Yet Macculloch himself found in the North material sufficient to fill four stout volumes; and the century which has intervened since he wrote has been rich in new collections of Highland folklore and ancient customs. And now there is a peculiar fitness in suggesting Highland life as a subject for careful study; for a century of depopulation has culminated in the melancholy figures of the latest census. A generation ago it was the decay of Highland manners which distressed the patriot; today it is the actual disappearance of the Highland stock from Scotland.
