60 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



that in this passage, as well as in others that might be quoted, he was 

 greater as an anatomist than as a logician. He was indeed thoroughly 

 grounded in anatomy, and though undoubtedly the digestive organs of 

 Birds have a claim to the fullest consideration, yet Macgillivray himself 

 subsequently became aware of the fact that there were several other parts 

 of their structure as important from the point of view of classification. 

 He it was, apparently, who first detected the essential difference of the 

 organs of voice presented by some of the New-World Passeres (subsequently 

 known as Clamatores), and the earliest intimation of this seems to be 

 given in his anatomical description of the Arkansas Flycatcher, Tyrannus 

 verticalis, which was published in 1838 (Ornithol. Biog. iv. p. 425), though 

 it must 1)6 admitted that he did not — because he then could not — perceive 

 the bearing of their dift'erence, which was reserved to be shewn by the 

 investigation of a still greater anatomist, and of one who had fuller 

 facilities for research, and thereby almost revolutionized, as will presently 

 be mentioned, the views of systematists as to this Order of Birds. There 

 is only space here to say that the second volume of Macgillivray's work 

 was published in 1839, and the third in 1840; but it was not until 

 1852 that the author, in broken health, found an opportunity of issuing 

 the fourth and fifth. His scheme of classification, being as before stated 

 partial, need not be given in detail. Its great merit is that it proved the 

 necessity of combining another and hitherto much-neglected factor in any 

 natural arrangement, though vitiated as so many other schemes have 

 been by being based wholly on one class of characters.^ 



But a bolder attempt at classification was that made in 1838 by 

 Blyth {Mag. Nat. Hist New Ser. ii. pp. 256-268, 314-319, 351-361, 

 420-426, 589-601 ; iii. pp. 76-84). It was limited, however, to what he 

 called Insessores, being the group upon which that name had been conferred 

 by Vigors {Trans. Linn. Soc. xiv. p. 405) in 1823, with the addition, more- 

 over, of his Raptores, and it will be unnecessary to enter into particulars 

 concerning it, though it is equally as remarkable for the insight shewn 

 by the author into the structure of Birds as for the breadth of his view, 

 which comprehends almost every kijid of character that had been at that time 

 brought forward. It is plain that Blyth saw, and perhaps he was the 

 first to see it, that Geographical Distribution was not unimportant in 

 suggesting the affinities and differences of natural groups (pp. 258, 259) ; 

 and, undeterred by the precepts and practice of the hitherto dominant 

 English school of Ornithologists, he declared that " anatomy, when aided 

 by every character which the manner of propagation, the progressive 



1 This is not the place to dwell on Macgillivray's merits ; but I may perhaps he 

 excused for repeating my opinion that, after Willughby, MacgUlivi-ay was the greatest 

 and most original ornithological genius save one (who did not live long enough to 

 make his powers widely known) that this island has produced. The exact amount of 

 assistance he afforded to Audubon in his Ornithological Biography \,'\\\ probably never 

 be ascertained ; but, setting aside " all the anatomical descriptions, as well as the 

 sketches by which they are sometimes illustrated," that on the latter's own statement 

 (nj). cit. iv. Introduction, p. xxiii.) are the work of Macgillivray, no impartial reader 

 can compare the style in which the History of British Birds is written with that of 

 the Ornithological Biography without recognizing the similarity of the two. On this 

 subject some remarks of Prof. Coues {Bull. Nutt. Ornithol. Club, 1880, p. 201) may 

 well be consulted. 



