28 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 



from the classification of previous ornithologists, was 

 founded. 



But since that time the advance in ornithology, in 

 every aspect of it, has been enormous. Many have 

 followed the line of treatment initiated by MacGillivray, 

 and most writers, since the publication of the Origin of 

 Species, have gone much further, in the light of the 

 principles of evolution and natural selection. Every 

 organ and feature of the bird, both internal and external, 

 has been made the subject of the most minute examina- 

 tion, with results directly bearing on the principles of 

 classification. These results and the present advanced 

 stage of this most attractive branch of science are well 

 and shortly explained in the recently published Structure 

 and Classification of Birds by Mr. Beddard. Still the 

 origin of the movement and the direction it has taken 

 are due to MacGillivray. 



He betrays oftener than once in his works a pro- 

 phetic consciousness that, while he felt he was groping 

 in the dark, the dawn of greater light was near ; but 

 how far he would have been able to accept the prin- 

 ciples of Darwin may be uncertain. His belief in the 

 separate creation of each species, and in its permanency 

 as so created, appears to have been strong, when the 

 introduction to the first volume of his History of 

 British Birds was written. In it he says: " Species alone 

 exist in nature," while " genera, families, orders, and all 

 the mediate sections of a class must ever remain fluctu- 

 ating ; " and that while species " are more or less allied 

 to each other, they exist in an order conformable to the 



