Fly Plaid - Which Shoulder??

[SlackerDrummer]

You may not be able to see his back, but if you look closely at his left side (just above the hose on his left foot), you can see the fringe from the plaid hanging down. Unless the fellow on the right has a bit of fringed tartan tucked into the back of his kilt, the only explanation for that is that the chap in the middle is wearing what is essentially a fly plaid.

I highly doubt that MacLeay would have added that had the plaid been belted, though I suppose it's a possibility.

Good catch, I noticed that too. I right-click saved the pic to my screen so I could enlarge it.

If you follow down the edges of the kilts on the left hand side of the middle Gent, and right hand side of the right hand Gent, you'll see that fringed corner is behind the middle Gent.

Taking the angle of view into account, if the right side Gent has something with fringe hanging from his right side, it somehow is hanging out far enough to be slightly behind the middle Gent,... who is clearly standing further back in the picture than the right hand Gent.

Based on the location of the fringe, and no evidance of it being belted, I think it safe to say that the middle Gent is wearing what today would be called a Fly Plaid.

Having worn a belted plaid as a drummer in a pipe band that wore #1 kit, I can assure you that a belted plaid can hang down that far and that they are in fact fringed all around. The drummer on the right in the image below is NOT wearing a fly plaid and I suspect the gent in the painting is not either.