MACGILLIVRAY, William (1796-1852), a writer on several branches of natural science, but best known as an ornithologist, was born in 1796. He studied as an arts student in King’s College, Aberdeen, graduating M.A. in 1815, and also studied medicine, but did not complete the latter course. In 1823 he became assistant to the professor of natural history in Edinburgh University; and in 1831 he was appointed curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. In 1841 he became professor of natural history and lecturer on botany in Marischal College, Aberdeen. He died in 1852. He possessed a wide and comprehensive knowledge of natural science in its various departments, gained no less from personal observations in the course of frequent excursions through different parts of Scotland than from a study of the collections under his charge in Edinburgh and of books. His industry and extensive knowledge are amply shown in his published works. He contributed numerous articles on the zoology, botany, and geology of Scotland to the scientific journals in Edinburgh, to the Magazine of Botany and Zoology, and to the Transactions of the British Association. He also assisted Audubon in his classical works on the Birds of America ; and he edited Withering’s British Botany....
His larger works are numerous, and include biographies (of Humboldt, and of zoologists from Aristotle to Linnaeus), Text-books of Botany, of Geology, and of Conchology, a History of British Quadrupeds, a History of the Mollusca of Aberdeen, Banff, and Kincardine, a Manual of British Ornithology, and a History of British Birds, in 5 vols., 1837-52, The last work holds a high rank from the excellent descriptions of the structure, habits, and haunts of birds, and from the use in classification of characters afforded by their internal organs. In 1850 he spent some time in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire. The results are embodied in the Natural History of Deeside, published after his death by command of the queen.
He made considerable collections, alike for the instruction of his students and to illustrate the zoology, botany, and geology of the parts of Scotland examined by him, especially around Aberdeen. His success in enlisting the interest and co-operation of his students is shown by the assistance acknowledged by him in his work on the mollusca of that district. His devotion to his favourite sciences made him apt to be careless of risk to health, and seems to have led to the illness that proved fatal. Though his reputation rests chiefly on his works on birds and on mollusca, his other writings are also of interest and value. In some respects he was in advance of most of his contemporaries, e.g., in the opinions in regard to species published in his Text-book of Botany (pp. 210, 211) in 1840.
His reputation might have been greater as a specialist had he restricted his investigations within narrower limits, but this he was prevented from doing as much by the wide range of subjects that he had to teach as by his natural inclination. He had to encounter great difficulties in ascertaining what had been already accomplished by naturalists elsewhere from the want of a good library and of named collections for reference. To this fact may be traced a tendency to regard as undescribed and to name whatever animals he was unable to identify from books within his reach, as well as occasional apparent neglect of work done by others and some peculiar views on nomenclature and classification.
Throughout his life pecuniary difficulties, in part arising from the publication of his books, pressed on him; and to this it was probably due, at least in part, that, despite an amiable nature, he at times expressed himself in controversy in a way that made him keen opponents. His books show that from all troubles he found relief in tracing the proofs of wisdom and of goodness in nature. Throughout his was a laborious life, and just before his death he completed his History of British Birds, an enduring and worthy memorial of an earnest and true-hearted naturalist.
His family inherited a taste for similar pursuits. One son, John, contributed several articles to magazines on the natural history of Scotland, and published an account of the voyage round the world of H.M.S. “Rattlesnake,” on board which he was naturalist. Another son, Paul, published Aberdeen Flora in 1853.
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