378 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 



The ' South Devon Gazette and Kingsbridge Times ' of July 7th pub- 

 lished a supplement devoted to the memory of Col. George Montagu, from 

 which we reproduce the following extracts : — 



" So much interest has been evinced by the finding of Montagus breast- 

 plate under the flooring over the vaults near the chancel door of our Parish 

 Church (Kingsbridge), that an account of his life and work, and the subse- 

 quent uncertainty of his place of sepulture, may not be amiss, for some 

 even solemnly asserted he was buried in the grounds at Knowle. For the 

 reproduction of the following memoir by William Cunnington, F.G.S., 

 written many years ago, we are under obligation to the Hon. Sec. of the 

 Wiltshire Natural History Society : — 



" George Montagu was born in the year 1755, at Lackham House, the 

 ancient seat of his family in North Wiltshire. He was the son of James 

 Montagu, Esq., of Lackham, and Elinor, sole surviving daughter of William 

 Hedges, Esq., of Alderton ; and was descended from the Honourable James 

 Montagu, third son of Henry, first Earl of Manchester, who, in the reign 

 of Charles the First, by marriage with Mary, daughter and heir of Sir 

 Robert Baynard, of Lackham, obtained the estate. At the age of sixteen 

 George Montagu entered the army as a lieutenant in the 15th Regiment of 

 Foot, and when he had completed his eighteenth year he married Anne, the 

 eldest daughter of William Courtenay, Esq., and Lady Jane his wife, who 

 was one of the sisters of the Earl of Bute, Prime Minister to George the 

 Third. After a few months spent in visiting friends of the bride in Scot- 

 land and in Ireland, Lieutenant Montagu's regiment was ordered to embark 

 for America, and the youthful pair had to experience the pain of a long 

 separation. 



"'It was at this early period,' says his daughter, Mrs. Crawford, ' that 

 my father first began to turn his attention, whenever opportunity offered, 

 to those pursuits of natural science for which he had so strong a pre- 

 dilection, and for which he was afterwards so much distinguished. He first 

 commenced by shooting any of the more curious American birds, a few of 

 which he preserved with his own hands, though with no further intention 

 at the time than that of presenting them to my mother. The interest 

 which my father had felt from his boyhood in the works of nature, animate 



