FOREWORD 



By Mrs. JOHN MASSIE 



The intention of the writer of this foreword is merely to give, in a 

 few lines, a slight sketch of the Author of these Essays from an 

 intimate and personal standpoint. This may, perhaps, increase 

 the interest in the scientific side of his character, as reflected in these 

 pages. 



Fergus Menteith Ogilvie was the sixth and youngest son of 

 Alexander and Margaret Ogilvie, of Sizewell House, Leiston, Suffolk. 

 He was born in London on November ist, 1861, and died on the 17th 

 January, 1918, of acute pneumonia, at the Shrubbery, his house in 

 Oxford". 



From his early boyhood, he showed a great love for animals, 

 but his ornithological bent began to be first noticeable when he was 

 about sixteen years of age. At that time, he met with a somewhat 

 serious accident in the football field at Rugb}', which necessitated 

 his leaving school, and for the next year or more he was a prisoner 

 to his bed or couch. During this time he became much interested 

 in the stuffing and setting up of birds, calling in aid any one from the 

 neighbourhood who would give him help. His beginnings in the art 

 were very rough and rudimentary, and the results quite unpleasant, 

 so far as the outward aspect of his rooms was concerned ; but the 

 work (which he took up partly to relieve the monoton}^ weariness 

 and frequent pain of a sick room) he pursued with ever increasing 

 ardour, and with the thoroughness whicli was the hall-mark of all 

 he undertook. Probably also his environment favoured a natural 

 bent towards the study of bird life ; for the sea-marshes, a part of 

 tlie Sizewell property, were an excellent hunting-ground for some 

 of the rare seabirds ; and the Argyllsliire property of Barcaldine, 

 which eventually became his own, was also fruitful in good specimens 

 for the collection he was making. 



