174 BRITISH BIRDS. 



that of a book on British birds. On May 7th, 1831, 

 MacGillivray thus writes to Audubon: — "As I understood 

 youi proposals respecting the Birds of Britain to have ended 

 in nothing, and as you do not allude to the subject, I shall 

 suppose all our ideas to have dispersed, and shall think of the 

 matter myself " [The Auk, Vol. XVIII., p. 241] ; and writing 

 again in 1834 he says: — "Now that your American birds 

 are completed I suppose you will have at the European or 

 the British. In the latter case what will become of m.ine ? 

 However, I have resolved, God willing, to go through with my 

 task. I have at least 20 dra\\ings superior to anything 

 in the way ever seen by me, excepting always ' The Birds of 

 America,' and so good that one miglit look at them without 

 disgust even after seeing yours " [Tom. cit., p. 245] ; 

 and in 1836 he tells Mrs. Audubon in a letter that " I have 

 on hand just now a work on Britisli Birds on a larger scale 

 than that of the Rapacious species . . . there wOl be several 

 plates representing the digestive organs and a few skeletons, 

 with a multitude of woodcuts, and I expect the first volume 

 to be out by the middle of March at the latest " [Tom. cit., 

 p. 248]. 



Mr. MacGillivray has very little information to afford us 

 on the subject of the History of British Birds and of its recep- 

 tion by the public. The matter is dismissecf in a few lines, 

 and these contain at least one serious error (p. 109). The 

 period elapsing between the publication of the third and 

 fourth volumes being twelve, and not fourteen years. Nor 

 does he offer us any explanation of MacGillivray' s long delay 

 in publishing the remaining portion of the " great work." 

 This delay arose, no doubt, from the unfavourable reception 

 afforded to it, and also from his new duties in his professorship 

 of Natural History at Marischal College. This is no place 

 to seek for a detailed explanation of the want of appreciation 

 with wliich MacGUlivray's contemporaries received his "British 

 Birds." Some remarks on that subject have already been made 

 in the pages of this magazine (Vol. II., p. 391), and it will here 

 suffice to quote by way of illustration a criticism of the first 

 volume of the History of British Birds which appeared in the 

 Magazine, of Zoology and Botany, Vol. II., p. 267 (1837-1838). 



This review was ^vritten by Sir William Jardine, one of the 

 editors of the magazine and liimself an ornitliologist of repute, 

 and MacGillivray was at that time a contributor to its pages. 



" We do not wdsh to appear unnecessarily critical regarding 

 the manner in which Mr. MacGillivray has accomplished this 

 object, but we should not act fairly to our subscribers were 



