ßl6 Cummings,A biographical sketch of Col. George Montagu. 



(a) MAMMALS. 



Montagu wrote a pleasant account of the Natural History of 

 the Mouse Harvest (Mus minutus) confirming and elaborating 

 some of .Gilbert White's observations. But his chief contributions 

 to our knowledge of the Mammalia consisted in his observations 

 on Bats, particularly the two species Rhinolophus 'ferrutn-equinum 

 and R. hipposideros which he proved te be distinct species and 

 added to the British list. He discovered a colony of these bats 

 in the famous cavern at Torquay know as "Kent's Hole" and 

 has written a very careful account of them pointing out their 

 structural characters and mode of life. The Barbastelle {Synotus 

 barbastelhts) was first discovered by Montagu in England in 1800 

 though Sowerly first recorded it in 1804. In the Memoirs of the 

 Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, he figures the skull of a Del- 

 phimis which had been caught in the River Dart and was then 

 exhibited at Totnes but which did not reach Montagu's hands 

 before it had been boiled down and its bones thrown into the 

 River. A correspondent of Montagu dredged the River and 

 recovered the skull. It is described as a new species, Delphinus 

 truncatus, which is the Ttirsiops hirsto of Gervais (the Bottled 

 nosed Dolphin), ■ — rare on our coasts. 



(b) BIRDS. 



It is impossible even for ornithologists to give Montagu 

 anything except praise for his valuable contributions to British 

 ornithology. His fame as a naturalist rests chiefly on his Orni- 

 thological Dictionary published in 1802. In 1831, the second 

 edition was published edited with remarks and introduction 

 by James Rennte, Professor of Natural History at Kings College, 

 London. Many years later Edward Newman, one-time editor of 

 "The Zoologist" brought out another edition, rewriting- almost the 

 whole of the original work and incorporating the additional 

 species of birds that had been since described by Selby, Yarrell 

 and others. 



Professor Alfred Newton's Dictionary of Birds is also planned 

 on the same lines as the Ornithological Dictionary but unlike the 

 latter it is devoted not only to the birds of Great Britain but to 

 the birds of the world. At the time it was written Montagu's 

 book was an excellent compendium of the knowledge which had 



