William MacGillivray
| William MacGillivray | |
|---|---|
 William MacGillivray in middle age, probably in 1841 Collection of the University of Aberdeen | |
| Born |
25 January 1796 Old Aberdeen |
| Died |
4 September 1852 (aged 56) Aberdeen |
| Resting place | Edinburgh |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Fields | Ornithology |
| Institutions | University of Aberdeen |
William MacGillivray FRSE MWS (25 January 1796 – 4 September 1852) was a Scottish naturalist and ornithologist.
Life and work
MacGillivray was born in Old Aberdeen and brought up on the island of Harris. He returned to Aberdeen where he attended King's College, graduating MA in 1815.[1] He studied medicine, but did not complete the course. In 1823 he became assistant to Robert Jameson, the Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh. He was curator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh from 1831, resigning in 1841 to become Professor of Natural History at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He died in Aberdeen and was buried in Edinburgh's New Calton Cemetery.
MacGillivray was a friend of American bird expert John James Audubon, and wrote a large part of Audubon's Ornithological Biographies from 1830-1839. Audubon named MacGillivray's warbler for him.
MacGillivray's eldest son, John MacGillivray (1822-1867), published an account of the voyage round the world of HMS Rattlesnake, to which he was the onboard naturalist. Another son, Paul, published an Aberdeen Flora in 1853, and donated 214 of his father's paintings to the Natural History Museum.
Legacy
A detailed version of MacGillivray's life, written by a namesake, was published 49 years after the ornithologist's death.[2]
MacGillivray correctly distinguished between the hooded crow and carrion crow, but they were considered only to be subspecies for the next one and a half centuries until, in 2002, on DNA evidence, the hooded crow was awarded species status.[3]
Works
 |
Wikisource has original works written by or about: William MacGillivray |
MacGillivray's works include:
- Lives of Eminent Zoologists from Aristotle to Linnaeus (1830)
- A Systematic Arrangement of British Plants (1830)
- The Travels and Researches of Alexander von Humboldt. (1832)
- A History of British Quadrupeds (1838)
- A Manual of Botany, Comprising Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology (1840)
- A History of the Molluscous Animals of Aberdeen, Banff and Kincardine (1843)
- A Manual of British Ornithology (1840–1842)
- A History of British Birds, indigenous and migratory, in five volumes (1837-1852)
- Natural History of Deeside and Braemar (1855), published posthumously
MacGillivray illustrated Henry Witham's 1833 The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic deposits of Great Britain, and edited The Conchologist's Text-Book through several editions.
See also
References
- ↑ Waterston, Charles D; Macmillan Shearer, A (July 2006). Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783-2002: Biographical Index (PDF). I. Edinburgh: The Royal Society of Edinburgh. ISBN 978-0-902198-84-5. Retrieved 31 December 2010.
- ↑ MacGillivray , William. A Memorial Tribute to William MacGillivray. Privately published, 1901.
- ↑ Newton, Ian (2010). The Migration Ecology of Birds. Academic Press. p. 648.
- ↑ IPNI. W.MacGill.
External links
- "Macgillivray, William". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
- Biography at Natural History Museum
- C. Michael Hogan (2009). Hooded Crow: Corvus cornix, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed, N. Stromberg
- William MacGillivray (1901). A memorial tribute to William MacGillivray, ornithologist, Edinburgh
- Works by William MacGillivray at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about William MacGillivray at Internet Archive
- BHL Works by William MacGillivray online
- De Avibus Historiae: MacGillivray by Alberto Masi