lo The hish Naturalist. Januaty, 



REVIEWS 



A GREAT NATURALIST. 



Life of William MacGlliivray, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.E. Ornithologist, 

 Professor of Natural History, Marischal College and University, 

 Aberdeen. By William MacGillivray, W.S., with a Scientific 

 Appreciation by J. Arthur Thomson, Regius Professor of Natural 

 History, Aberdeen University. Pp. xvi + 222. With illustrations. 

 London : John Murray. los. 6d. net. 



It will be generally agreed that William MacGillivray deserved a 

 fuller biography than it is now possible for him to receive ; but our gratitude 

 ought not, on that account, to be less to the writer — a namesake of the 

 great naturalist — who has done his best with the materials still available 

 to make up for the deficiencies in this respect of an elder generation. 

 From the sketch of MacGillivray's life here presented one gathers much 

 that is of genuine interest regarding the earlier years of the man to whom 

 British ornithology — and, indeed, ornithology in general — owes so much ; 

 told principally in extracts from the few volumes of his journals which 

 fortunately escaped destruction when the rest were burnt in an Australian 

 fire. These are written with a freedom and copiousness which enable 

 them to throw real light on MacGillivray's character and the wide range 

 of his sympathies, vv'hile illustrating above everything else his wonderful 

 enthusiasm for Nature and his special love for her sternest solitudes. 

 An appreciation of MacGillivray's scientific work by tlie present occupant 

 of his old Chair in Aberdeen University, Professor J. Arthur Thomson, 

 will to many readers prove the most interesting chapter in this altogether 

 very acceptable book. The greatness of MacGillivray's genius is, of 

 course, beyond dispute ; but his writings for several reasons are not so 

 familiar as they should be, and we arc therefore glad that the author 

 has devoted the last sixty pages of his volume to characteristic passages 

 from the "History of British Birds" and the "Natural History of 

 Deeside " — the last printed after his death for private circulation by the 

 late Queen Victoria, and containing a few curious misprints which have 

 not been corrected in Mr. MacGillivray's quotations. Still more welcome 

 than the extracts are the reproductions of eight of the drawings of birds 

 by MacGillivray's hand, which are in the Natural History Department 

 of the British Museum. These are of peculiar interest in view of 

 MacGillivray's scrupulous accuracy in regard to attitude. His criticisms 

 on the various museums that he visited during a tour of inspection in 

 1833 bring out very strongly the importance he attached to this subject, 

 which he seems nowhere to have found satisfactorily studied, or, indeed, 

 studied or appreciated at all. A visit to " the Dublin College Museum " 

 drew forth the remark " there is a considerable number of skeletons, 

 but almost all uningeniously articulated, and in the most preposterous 



