Background
MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen, the son of ornithologist William MacGillivray.
MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen, the son of ornithologist William MacGillivray.
He took part in three of the Royal Navy"s surveying voyages in the Pacific. In 1842 he sailed as naturalist on board HMS Fly, despatched to survey the Torres Strait, New Guinea, and the east coast of Australia, returning to England in 1846. In the same year he was appointed as naturalist on the voyages of HMS Rattlesnake (Captain Owen Stanley), collecting in Australian waters at Portuguese Curtis, Rockingham Bay, Portuguese Molle, Cape York, Gould Island, Lizard Island and Moreton Island in Queensland, Portuguese Essington (Northern Territory) and visiting Sydney (New South Wales) on several occasions.
The expedition was in Hobart, Tasmania, in June 1847 and also surveyed in Bass Strait, and on the southern coast of New Guinea and the Louisiade Archipelago.
His account of the voyages was published in London. She died two weeks from Sydney (Desmond 1994 p217).
MacGillivray"s journey on HMS Herald was also doomed to failure. The ship visited Lord Howe Island, New South Wales, Dirk Hartog Island and Shark Bay, Western Australia.
On this expedition he was accompanied by Scots naturalist William Grant Milne.
MacGillivray left the voyage early in 1855, having been dismissed by the captain Henry Mangles Denham. MacGillivray died in Sydney, New South Wales, on 6 June 1867. He is commemorated in the name of the Fiji petrel Pseudobulweria macgillivrayi.
He also collected a specimen of venomous elapid snake on the northeastern coast of Australia.
lieutenant was described by zoologist Albert Günther in 1858 as Glyphodon tristis but it is now called Furina tristis. In the late 19th century it was known as MacGillivray"s snake but this name has now fallen into disuse and it is now called either the brown-headed snake or the grey-naped snake.