Ornithological Dictionary

The Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds was written by the English naturalist and army officer George Montagu, and first published by J. White of Fleet Street, London in 1802. It was one of the texts, along with Thomas Bewick's contemporaneous A History of British Birds (2 volumes, 1797 and 1804) that made ornithology popular in Britain, and, with the 1676 Ornithologia libri tres of Francis Willughby and John Ray, helped to make it the object of serious study. The book includes a description of the cirl bunting, discovered by Montagu in 1800 near his home in Kingsbridge, Devon. The first edition was admired by biologists including Charles Darwin and David Lack. A second edition, extensively revised by James Rennie in 1831, was panned by scientific critics.

Context The Ornithological Dictionary is George Montagu's best-known work, and the one that established his reputation as a pioneer of British ornithology. He compiled the book at his home Knowle House, near Kingsbridge in Devon. It was published soon after the first volume of Thomas Bewick's illustrated handbook, A History of British Birds, which appeared in 1797. It does not describe what is now called Montagu's harrier, which he separated from the hen harrier in 1803, after the publication of the book.

Outline

Introduction George Montagu's introduction, "in hopes of advancing knowledge of the subject", mentions Thomas Pennant as being "diffuse on the subject" of ornithology, as well as Dr. Latham's General Synopsis of Birds and his Index Ornithologicus. He then introduces the anatomy of birds, separating those with a cartilaginous stomach or gizzard, and those with a membranous stomach; those that incubate their young, and the cuckoo that does not; with remarks on instincts such as carrying shell fragments away from the nest, birdsong, and feet adapted for different purposes, such as climbing or swimming. Montagu states that the "sheets have been entirely drawn from our own observations, and compiled from the notes of twenty years search and attention ... in most parts of this kingdom", mentioning woods, mountains and "barren waste", rivers and lakes.

Body

The entire body of the book is arranged as a dictionary from Aberdevine ('Vide Siskin'.) on page 58 (the pages are however not numbered in the original) to Yelper ('Vide Avoset'.) on page 687. Since the book does not have a continuous narrative to summarise, the account here will use one species as a running example to illustrate the book's approach. The cirl bunting is chosen because it was discovered by Montagu and is associated in Britain with his home town of Kingsbridge, Devon. He also chose the species for the colour frontispiece of the book. The entry for the cirl bunting states that it was discovered by Montagu "in the winter of 1800" near his home in Kingsbridge, Devon. He records that the species is indigenous to Devon and "confined to the southern parts of that county contiguous to the coast", as it remains in the twentyfirst century. Species are listed by the English form of the generic name, thus BUNTING-CIRL. Each genus thus named is listed, as

BUNTING. A genus of birds, the characters of which are, Bill strong and conic, the sides of each mandible bending inwards; a hard knob in the roof of the upper mandible.

Entry structure The entry for each species varies in length from half a page, as for BUNTING-GREEN-HEADED (which is dismissed as "no other than an accidental variety of the female Yellow Bunting") to three pages (as for BUNTING-CIRL). The cirl bunting entry begins by citing the known authorities on the species, with the names they used for it:

BUNTING-CIRL. Emberona Cirlus. Lin. Syst. i. p. 311. 12. ... Le Bruant de haye. Buf. iv. p. 347. ... Cirl Bunting. Lath. Syn. iii. p. 190 26.

Emberiza sepiaria. Bris. iii. p. 263. ... The rest of the entry is written in continuous prose, starting with a physical description giving length, weight, and a detailed account of plumage with differences between the sexes (more than a page in the cirl bunting's case). Montagu then describes the species' distribution, nesting (nest structure, number of eggs, nesting period), differences from similar species, and other observations.

Appendices The appendix lists two additional species of sandpiper (the little and the yellow-legged). There follows 'A List of British Birds, systematically arranged into Ordines, Genera and Species', divided as in Thomas Bewick's A History of British Birds into Land Birds and Water Birds. Montagu then provides an "Explanation of some Technical Terms used in Ornithology by Linnaeus and others, and in this Work". Terms range from the Cere, "the naked skin that covers the base of the bill in the Hawk kind" to "Pes compedes", "When the legs are placed so far behind as to be rendered almost useless in walking, as in the Grebes and Divers". This is followed by a "Catalogue of the Principal Authors referred to in this Work". The authors range from Eleazar Albin to Francis Willughby.

Editions The first edition appeared in 1802. It had page numbers in the introduction (to page xlii (42 pages) but not in the main text (655 pages). It was printed in two volumes for J. White of Fleet Street, London by T. Bensley of Bolt Court, London. A Supplement to the Ornithological dictionary, or, Synopsis of British birds was published in Exeter by S. Woolmer in 1813. The second edition appeared in 1831, described as being "By Colonel G. Montagu, F.L.S." but "with a plan of study, and many new articles and original observations". It was fully numbered and ran to lx (60 pages of introductory matter) + 592 pages. The text was revised by the Scottish naturalist James Rennie, Montagu having died in 1815. Rennie was not an ornithologist; he had earlier published books such as Insect Architecture and Insect Transformations. The second edition was published by Hurst, Chance, and Co, of St Paul's, London. Rennie states that he has "made very considerable alterations in the arrangement". He criticises Montagu's grouping of all species of a genus together, as with "Duck-Eider, Duck-King" as "an unnecessary awkwardness, attended with no apparent advantage", and instead lists them as written. He also criticises the use of "greater" and "lesser" to distinguish two similar species, as of whitethroats, choosing to call the lesser whitethroat by "the continental name, Babillard."

Reception

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