Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/97

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MacGillivray
91
MacGillivray

the queen, and at her command privately printed under the editorship of Professor E. Lankester, in 1855.

The following is a list of his other works:

  1. 'A Systematic Arrangement of British Plants by W. Withering, Corrected and Condensed [and furnished], with an Introduction to Botany, by W. MacGillivray,' 8vo, London, 1830; 10th ed. 1858.
  2. 'The Travels of A. von Humboldt … a Condensed Narrative,' 8vo, Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. x. 1832; 2nd edit. 1859.
  3. 'Lives of Eminent Zoologists, from Aristotle to Linnæus,' 8vo, Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. xvi. 1834; 2nd edit. 1860.
  4. 'Descriptions of the Rapacious Birds of Great Britain,' 8vo, London, 1836.
  5. 'A History of British Quadrupeds,' in Jardine's Naturalist's Library, vol. xxii. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1838; 2nd issue 1845-6, vol. xvii.
  6. 'A Manual of Botany,' 8vo, London, 1840; 2nd edit. 1853.
  7. 'A Manual of Geology,' 12mo, London, 1840; 2nd edit. 1841.
  8. 'A Manual of British Ornithology,' 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1840-2; 2nd edit. 8vo, 1846.
  9. 'A History of the Molluscous Animals of the Counties of Aberdeen, Kincardine, and Banff,' &c, 12mo, London, 1843; 2nd edit. 1844.
  10. 'Domestic Cattle; the Drawings by J. Cassie, jun.,' 8 pts. issued 1845.

MacGillivray conducted the 'Edinburgh Journal of Natural History and of Physical Science' from its inception in October 1835 to its termination in May 1840. With this was issued a translation of a portion of Cuvier's 'Animal Kingdom.' He edited with notes a translation from the French of Richard's 'Elements of Botany,' 8vo, Edinburgh and London, 1831; also a new edition of Sir J. E.; Smith's 'Introduction to … Botany,' 12mo, London, 1836, and the 6th edit., enlarged, of Thomas Brown's 'Conchologists' Text-Book,' 12mo, Edinburgh and London, 1845. He wrote the description of the species, with their anatomy, of several hundred specimens of birds for Audubon's 'Ornithological Bibliography' (5 vols. 1831-9), and prepared the greater part, if not the whole, of that author's 'Synopsis of the Birds of North America' (1839). He also wrote a sketch of the section Palmipes, for Wilson's article, 'Ornithology,' in the 7th edit, of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' and did the drawings for sixteen quarto plates illustrative of the 'Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables formed in the Carboniferous and Oolitic Deposits of Great Britain,' by Witham. In addition he wrote more than thirty minor papers, which appeared in the 'Transactions of the Wernerian Natural History Society,' 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' 'Edinburgh Quarterly Journal of Agriculture,' 'Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society,' and 'Edinburgh Journal of Medical and Natural Science.

Among his papers at his death was found the unfinished manuscript of a projected 'History of the Vertebrated Animals,' and he probably translated or edited many other works of which no record was kept.

A collection of original water-colour drawings by him of British mammals, birds, and fish is preserved in the Zoological Department of the British Museum (Natural History).

The only published portrait—that in Harvie-Brown and Buckley's 'Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer Hebrides/ pt. ii.—is from one in oils by MacGillivray himself, retouched after his death by a local artist. It is not considered a good likeness.

MacGillivray's son, John MacGillivray (1822-1867), naturalist, the eldest of thirteen children, was born at Aberdeen 18 Dec. 1822; but spent his childhood in Edinburgh, where he afterwards studied medicine. In 1842, before the course was complete, he was appointed by Lord Derby naturalist under Professor J. B. Jukes [q. v.], on board the Fly, commanded by Captain Blackwood, and sailed in her to Torres Straits and the Eastern Archipelago. He returned to England in 1846, and later in that year was appointed naturalist on board the Rattlesnake, under Captain Owen Stanley. Professor Huxley, then an assistant-surgeon in the royal navy, was also of the staff. On his return in 1850, MacGillivray wrote an account of the voyage, which was published in 1852. Later in that year he sailed, also in the capacity of naturalist, in the Herald, under Captain Denham, on a surveying voyage to the coasts of South America, and for the South Pacific. MacGillivray, however, left the vessel at Sydney in 1855, and spent the rest of his life in making excursions to various of the Australasian islands, collecting natural history specimens, and studying the habits of the aborigines. Accounts of these expeditions appeared from time to time in the Sydney papers. His constitution was at length undermined by the constant fatigue and exposure, and he died at Sydney 6 June 1867. The molluscan genus MacGillivray is was named in his honour.

[Memoir by J. Harley in Selection of Papers of Leicester Lit. and Phil. Soc. pp. 107-64; Edinb. New Phil. Journ. 1853, liv. 189-206; Encycl. Brit. 9th edit.; North Brit. Rev. six. 1-10; Athenæum, 18 Nov. 1852; Gent. Mag. 1852, pt. ii. p. 533; Preface to the Rapacious Birds; Good Words, 1868, pp. 425-9, and portrait of J. MacGillivray; information kindly