CHAPTER VI 
MACGILLIVRAY’s SCIENTIFIC WORK : AN APPRECIATION 
Introductory 
As the preceding biographical sketch shows, 
MacGillivray was for the most part a self- 
taught naturalist. We do not know of any 
decisive nurtural influences, giving him an impulse 
towards Natural History, so we have to assume 
that he had by inheritance a “ love of Nature,” and 
a scientific mood. We are on sure ground when we 
say that the former was fostered ? by his being a 
country boy, and the latter by the influence of 
teachers and friends during his University course. 
Perhaps the tramps across Scotland at the end of 
session after session—for he always walked from 
Aberdeen to the West Coast to get a boat, at 
Glenelg, or some such place, that would take 
him to Harris — strengthened the interests and 
aptitudes that made him so pre-eminently an open- 
air naturalist. 
He was doubtless influenced by Prof. Jamieson 
whom he heard and assisted in Edinburgh; but the 
man was made before that. It is also certain that 
he found in Audubon a congenial spirit and a great 
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