390 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Birds," which was completed in 1852, has nevertheless 

 failed to receive the appreciation which it deserves, and 

 although it is probably far more widely read to-day than 

 it has been hitherto, it has taken upwards of sixty years 

 for the student and compiler to recognise its transcendent 

 merit. 



The causes of this neglect are somewhat difficult to 

 understand ; and probably they arose from a variety of 

 circumstances. Macgillivray's personal character was 

 no doubt an obstacle to his success. One of his warmest 

 admirers, the great American bibliographer and naturalist, 

 Elhott Coues, describes him in these words : — 



" Macgillivray appears to have been of an irritable, 

 highly sensitized temperament, fired with enthusiasm 

 and ambition, yet contending, for some time at least, with 

 poverty ; ill-health and a perhaps not well-founded, 

 though not therefore the less acutely-felt, sense of neglect ; 

 thus ceaselessly nerved to accomplish yet as continually 



haunted with the dread of failure This 



author was undoubtedly unwise in his frankness ; but 



diplomacy is a stranger to such characters 



If he never hesitated to differ sharply with anyone, or 

 to express his own views pointedly — if he scarcely dis- 

 guised his contempt for triflers, blockheads, pedants, 

 compilers and theorizers .... he was nevertheless 

 a lover of Nature, an original thinker, a hard student, 

 and finally an ornithologist of large practical experience, 

 who wrote down what he knew or beHeved to be true 

 with great regard for accuracy of statement and in a very 

 agreeable manner." 



To this must be added the curious coincidence that 

 in the same year as the first volume of Macgillivray's 

 " History of British Birds " was pubHshed (that is in 

 1837), another very famous work on the same subject, 

 and bearing a precisely similar title, made its appearance. 

 This was the well-known work of William Yarrell, which, 

 from the clearness of its descriptions, the skill of its illus- 

 trations and the useful conciseness of its information. 



