PREFACE 
The purpose of this little book is to aid in preserv¬ 
ing to some extent a record of the life and work 
of the most eminent British ornithologist of his 
day. 
William MacGillivray was a native of Aberdeen, 
lived during his boyhood with his relations in the 
island of Harris, went to his native city for his 
university education—spending his long holidays 
during the period of that education in Harris. While 
in the course of his goings and comings between 
Aberdeen and Harris, and of other excursions on 
foot in many parts of the country, including a walk 
from Aberdeen to London, his eyes were always 
open to every object in Nature, both animate and 
inanimate. All that he saw he treasured in a 
retentive memory, besides committing much to 
carefully written journals. 
He married in 1820, and the twenty-one years 
of his life that immediately followed were spent 
in Edinburgh. During that period, besides attend¬ 
ing faithfully to his official duties as Conservator 
of the Museum of the Edinburgh College of 
Surgeons, for the last half of that period, he devoted 
much of his time to the acquisition of extended 
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