1. The fashion of natural history in the second half of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century has often been noted. For an interesting attempt to document this trend see Don Baesel, “Natural History and the British Periodicals in the Eighteenth Century”, Ph.D., Ohio StateUniversity, 1974.
2. Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977, p. 125 [letter #7 to Daines Barrington, Oct. 8, 1770].
3. British Museum, Egerton ms. 3147, fol. 15. For an interesting discussion of Dovaston see D. E. Allen, “J. F. M. Dovaston. An Overlooked Pioneer of Field Ornithology”, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1967, 4(6):277–283.
4. See R. J. Cleevely, “Some Background to the Life and Publications of Colonel George Montagu (1753–1815)”, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1978, 8(4):445–480
5. and Bruce Cummings, “Colonel Montagu, Naturalist”, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, 1914–5:43–48.