Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/406

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'South Devon Gazette and Kingsbridge Times' of July 7th published 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 Montagu's breastplate 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 subsequent 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 Scotland 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 predilection, 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