70 MEMORIAL TRIBUTE 



Every one in Britain who cares much about birds 

 does, in a real sense, know MacGillivray, for he left a 

 lasting mark upon ornithology. May I explain in a 

 minute why one says so. It is because, until 1837, no 

 one in Britain had seriously tried to found a classification, 

 or natural system of birds except upon external char- 

 acters ; while MacGillivray a trained anatomist got 

 far beneath the surface and showed that a bird is not 

 always, nor altogether, to be known by its feathers. My 

 own opinion is of little moment in matters ornithological, 

 but let me quote a sentence from The Dictionary of 

 Birds, in which Mr. Alfred Newton, rather an unsparing- 

 critic, says "After Willughby, MacGillivray 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." It may 

 be that the greatest merit of MacGillivray's " system of 

 birds" was that it prompted a better one, yet we are 

 here to-day respecting him because he tackled a big 

 piece of work and did it well. 



But, as has been said, there are many other reasons 

 beyond all ornithology why we seek to keep his 

 memory green. He was a fine type of the open-air 

 naturalist, before the days of microtomes (and how he 

 pours scorn on the " pompous ornithologist " who does 

 not know what it is to climb and stalk and watch) ; he 

 was a fine type of the all-round naturalist, holding to no 

 petty distinctions between this science and that, realising 

 the unity of Nature and the unity of Science, showing, 

 for instance, in his Natural History of Deeside, that 



