WORK UNDERTAKEN FOR AUDUBON 65 
the persistence of the explorer—qualities which, 
he says in his book on The Natural History of 
Deeside , “the naturalist ought, in his own person, 
to represent.” 
In addition to all the calls made upon him by 
his daily official duties as Conservator of the 
Surgeons’ Museum and his other engrossing avoca¬ 
tions, much of MacGillivray’s time was occupied 
with important work which he undertook for 
the eminent American ornithologist, John James 
Audubon. 
As Audubon came to be intimately associated 
with MacGillivray, a short account of him may be 
appropriately inserted here. 
Audubon was the son of a French admiral who, 
in the early part of last century, had risen to that 
position from the avocation of a common fisherman. 
He had married in America, and there his son was 
born. The boy lost his mother while he was an 
infant, and was sent to France to the care of a kind 
stepmother, who took charge of his early educa¬ 
tion. While yet a boy, he spent much of his time 
in roaming about the woods and fields near his 
home on the river Loire, taking special interest in 
watching the habits of birds and in obtaining 
specimens, from which he made many drawings in 
a more or less primitive style. 
On attaining adolescence, he returned to 
America, and wandering in the great forests there 
in search of birds became a fascination with him. 
Much of his time was thereafter spent in obtaining 
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