48 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 



conversation ; has restored me to health and preserved 

 it to me ; has enabled me to accomplish the purpose of 

 my journey, and filled me with gratitude now that I 

 approach its termination." 



It is believed, however, that although he felt at the 

 time that he had benefited in health by the excursion, 

 the fatigues to which he had subjected himself had been 

 really detrimental to it. He became so ill a few weeks 

 before the end of the College term of 1850-51 that he 

 was obliged to relinquish his class duties for the 

 remainder of that term, these having been undertaken for 

 him by a former student, now the Rev. Dr. Farquharson, 

 for the last forty -two years the much -esteemed (now 

 senior) parish minister of Selkirk. MacGillivray was un- 

 able to enter on his class duties for the session 1851-52, 

 and the same gentleman acted as his substitute again for 

 the whole of that session. Accompanied by his eldest 

 daughter, he went to Torquay for his health in the late 

 autumn of 1851, and while there his wife died suddenly 

 in Aberdeen in February 1852. On 8th March following, 

 when still at Torquay, he published the fourth volume 

 of his History of British Birds just fourteen years after 

 the issue of the third volume and in the preface to it he 

 makes the following very touching reference to his posi- 

 tion at Torquay at the time : " As the wounded bird 

 seeks some quiet retreat where, freed from the persecution 

 of the pitiless fowler, it may pass the time of its anguish 

 in forgetfulness of the world, so have I, assailed by 

 disease, betaken myself to a sheltered nook where, 

 unannoyed by the piercing blasts of the North Sea, I 



