SKETCH OF LIFE AND WORK 37 



permission of the College to absent himself from the 

 Museum on Saturdays only. 



Audubon, in the introduction to the first volume 

 of his Ornithological Biographies, published by Adam 

 Black, Edinburgh, in 1831, says: "I feel pleasure in 

 acknowledging the assistance I have received from a 

 friend, INIr. William MacGillivray, who, being possessed 

 of a liberal education and a strong taste for the study 

 of the natural sciences, has aided me, not in drawing 

 the figures of my illustrations, nor in writhig the book 

 now in hand, although fully competent for both tasks, 

 but in completing the scientific details and in smoothing 

 down the asperities of my Ornithological Biogrcqjhies. 



Again, in the introduction to the fourth volume, 

 published in November 1838, Audubon writes: "With 

 reference to a vast number of specimens " — which had 

 been sent him from America — " an account of the 

 digestive organs and trachea of these, generally concise, 

 but occasionally of considerable length, you will find 

 under the articles to which they refer in the present 

 volume. Their anatomical descriptions, as well as the 

 sketches by which they are sometimes illustrated, have 

 been executed by my learned friend, William Mac- 

 Gillivray, who in the most agreeable manner consented 

 to undertake the labour, by no means small, of such a 

 task, and to whom those who are interested in the 

 progress of ornithological science, as well as myself, 

 must therefore feel indebted." There then follows a 

 sentence in which he prophesies that the time is 

 approaching when museums filled with stuffed skins 



