Cummin gs, A biographical sketch of Col. George Montagu. ^2 1 



ing many new species himself, including Ebalia tumefacta. The 

 Pycnogonid Phoxichihts spinosus is also Montagu's species. 



(f) ECHINODERMS. 



Our author devoted less attention to these fascinating crea- 

 tures than one would have expected. However several Holo- 

 thurians stand to his credit, and also the Ophiuroid, Ophiocnida 

 brachiata (Montagu), Lyman, which Canon Norman obtained again 

 in Salcombe Bay. 



(g) SPONGES. 



Montagu's work in the Sponges is very good as far as it 

 goes. Systematic work on the sponges was however an unfor- 

 tunate choice, as in those days so little was known about the 

 structure and physiology of sponges that systematists as a rule 

 seized upon only the least important of characters, such as size 

 and shape, etcetera. Thus, Montagu, in his Spongia Brittannica 

 divides the sponges into (i) Branched (2) Digitated (3) Tubular (4) 

 Compact (5) Orbicular. Many of his descriptions are meagre 

 and incomplete though almost invariably accurate as far as 

 they go. From a table prepared by Canon Norman for Vol. IV 

 of Bowerbank's British Sponges it appears that he described in 

 all 1 1 new species of British sponges which must have meant 

 energetic work in such an "occult science" as Montagu called it. 



Two letters written by Colonel Montagu to Gilbert White 



of Selborne, 



Easton Grey, 



Nr. Tedbury, 



Gloucestershire. 



May 21 St. 1789. 

 Sir. 



Although I have not the pleasure of being personally acquainted with 

 you, yet I flatter myself you will pardon this intrusion of an enthusiastic natu- 

 ralist. I have been greatly entertained by your Natural History of Selborne 

 in the ornithological part of which I find mention made of three distinct species 

 of willow wren. Can you inform me if they are (besides the common) the 

 larger and lesser pettychaps of Latham, neither of which is described by 

 Pennant in his British Zoology. He describes a species with the inside of the 

 mouth red which I cannot make out in this country; those two of Latham's 

 I believe I have got so far as I can judge from the description that gentleman 

 favoured me with; but his sedge- wren I am at a loss for as he describes the 



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