100 PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY [ch. v. 
University of which I am a member, and I cannot 
but look upon it as indicating the not distant dawn 
of an era destined, I trust, to produce investiga¬ 
tions, the importance of which will tend to give our 
city a rank, certainly not yet acquired, among 
those distinguished for the cultivation of natural 
history.” 
That prophecy has to a large extent been 
fulfilled, and it is mainly through his work and 
inspiring influence that it has been so. 
MacGillivray occupied his chair eleven years, 
discharging his duties with the energy, intelligence, 
and independence of view which formed so essential 
features of his character. 
In the course of his many excursions and other¬ 
wise he accumulated a large collection of zoological 
specimens, which he arranged into an excellent 
private museum, with the scientific order which 
was so natural to him. That museum was used 
by him to great advantage as illustrative of his 
teaching, and it is now the property of the Aberdeen 
University. 
His students always held him in the greatest 
respect, and many of them were warmly devoted 
to him. He was accustomed to treat them more 
as friends than as pupils; and one of his former 
students, in a letter to me, writes of him as 
follows:— 
“ I had a very great regard for him not only as 
an ornithologist but as a man. He was exceedingly 
