35 
Richard Meinertzhagen; Soldier, Scientist and Spy. By Mark Cocker. 1989, 
Seeker and Warburg, London. 292 pages. 17 Black and White Photographs. 
£14.95. 
The name Meinertzhagen is familiar to many birdwatchers, especially those 
with an interest in the Middle East. As author of Nicoll's Birds of Egypt 
(1930) and Birds of Arabia (1954) he produced books that almost until this 
day remained the authoritative works on those regions. The many 
larger-than-life stories that are associated with the man are, however, 
perhaps more the reason for his fame. In this detailed biography, Mark 
Cocker recounts and expands on many of these, putting them into context, 
perhaps for the first time. 
Meinertzhagen' s early life was primarily taken up with his career as a 
soldier, though this gave him time to pursue his interests in hunting in 
India and East Africa. During the first world war he became increasing 
involved with intelligence work, finally serving as Allenby's chief of 
military intelligence during the Palestine Campaign. I found this part of 
the book particularly interesting perhaps because it was an aspect of 
Meinertzhagen' s life that I knew little about. In 1919, he met T. E. 
Lawrence at the Paris Peace Conference and his comments on Lawrence are 
also fascinating. 
The author has had to rely on Meinertzhagen' s personal diaries for much of 
his information and it seems that considerable controversy surrounds 
these. They were written in a loose-leaf format and it has been suggested 
that Meinertzhagen may have re-written selected pages at later dates so as 
to make it seem as if he was more perceptive than he really was. Mark 
Cocker points out a number of chronological discrepancies which seem to 
back this up. Perhaps even more worrying is the suggestion that 
Meinertzhagen may have fabricated some of his ornithological data. One 
example of this concerns his account of Razo Lark Alauda razae . 
Meinertzhagen describes the feeding habits of the species, which is 
confimed to one island in the Cape Verde islands, from personal 
observation . It seems, however, that he never visited the island concerned 
and cannot have seen the species in life! He is also accused of stealing 
specimens from museums and adding them to his own collection having 
relabelled them with fictitious data. 
The life of this fascinating man was certainly a strange and complicated 
one. The author has presented us with a detailed account of it which I 
greatly enjoyed reading, even though many questions remain unanswered and 
subject to speculation; they probably always will. Anyone with an 
interest in Meinertzhagen or the history of ornithology in the early part 
of this century should certainly enjoy reading this book. 
David Fisher 
