io8 



NATURE 



[November 24, 1910 



became for financial reasons necessary to accept the 

 post of assistant to Prof. Jameson, who then held the 

 chair of natural history in that city. His beloved 

 birds, however, enticed him away again to the fields 

 for a few years, until in 1831 he received the entirely 

 congenial appointment of conservator of the Museum 

 of the CoUej^e of Surgeons in Edinburgh. Here he 

 accomplished splendid curatorial and research work — 

 among much else replacing, through his accurate 

 knowledg^e of living nature, the taxidermal monstrosi- 

 ties he found there by lifelike specimens — wherby his 

 great scientific attainments became very widely recog- 

 nised. His numerous anatomical investigations were 

 continually supplying material for his new system of 

 classification of birds, which, it was his peculiar merit 

 to perceive, should not, as hitherto, be based on their 

 external characters alone, but on their internal 

 organisation as well. He specially devoted his atten- 

 tion to their digestive organs, undoubtedly too exclu- 

 sivelv ; but still, his was unquestionably a distinct ad- 



labour for eleven years to this end that he found no 

 opportunity until early in 1852 to issue the fourth 

 volume of his great history. It was published during 

 his stay at Torquay, whither he had retreated " from 

 the blasts of the North Sea," in the hope, which 

 proved vain, of recovering his health, "assailed by 

 disease." In July of the same year, within six weeks 

 after the appearance of the concluding volume, this 

 gifted naturalist and most lovable man passed away, 

 amid the esteem of his scientific contemporaries and 

 the special regard and affection of his former pupils, 

 of whom a small remnant only now survives. 



The above personal details are summarised from 

 the first five chapters of this welcome " Life," in which 

 all the available information about his distinguished 

 relative has been brought together by a namesake. 

 The succeeding chapter contains a warm appreciation 

 of MacGillivrav's scientific work by the present occu- 

 pant — the fourth in succession — of the Aberdeen chair, 

 Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, himself an ardent naturalist 



vancc on an}' method previously attempted. At this 

 juncture he became associated as joint author with 

 Audubon, the American ornithologist, in his "Ornith- 

 ological Biographies." 



In this great work all the technical and anatomical 

 descriptions, and even some of the plates, are Mac- 

 Gillivray's, while Audubon's are the drawings and 

 field notes on the species, of which he had an intimate 

 acquaintance. During this period MacGillivray wrote 

 many other books, but he was busy also with his 

 projected " History of British Birds," the first three 

 volumes of which appeared between 1837 and 1840. 

 The wide reputation he had acquired in Edinburgh 

 won for him early in 1841 the natural history chair in 

 Marischal College, Aberdeen. Into his new duties 

 there he entered with all the enthusiasm and energy 

 of his nature, and with the ardent desire — not un- 

 realised-y-that through his endeavours "the city might 

 obtain a' rank among those distinguished for the cul- 

 fivatiotJ of natural history." So strenuously did he 



NO. 2143, VOL. 85] 



William MacGillivray. 



of the MacGillivray t\'pe. The final chapter is devoted 

 to a series of delightful and characteristic descriptive 

 passages from MacGillivray 's writings, while a selec- 

 tion of his lifelike drawings from those in the British 

 Museum illustrate the volume, one of which, by the 

 courtesy of the publishers, is here reproduced. A 

 volume on the "Natural History of Deeside and Brae- 

 mar," found in MS. after his death, was purchased 

 and published privately by Queen Victoria. Ornith- 

 ologists everywhere will echo the regret expressed by 

 Ladv Geddes — whose personal recollections of the pro- 

 fessor will be read with special interest — that no por- 

 trait of MacGillivray is in existence. 



It has been peculiarlv gratifying to the present 

 writer to have been requested to bring this biography 

 of MacGillivray under the notice of the readers of 

 Nature. The deepest pleasures of his own life have 

 been derived from natural history pursuits in many 

 parts of the globe, and he may perhaps be permitted 

 to sav that his love for nature was awakened in 



