shinmeikai: 〔俳句で〕春に、さえずりかわす多くの小鳥。

I think it's poetic.
Koj has many more archaic examples than daijr/s but they're not usually the oldest citations.

@@ -12,3 +12,3 @@
-<misc>&arch;</misc>
-<gloss>all sorts of birds</gloss>
-<gloss>hundreds (and thousands) of birds</gloss>
+<misc>&poet;</misc>
+<gloss>many bird</gloss>
+<gloss>various kinds of birds</gloss>
@@ -18 +18 @@
-<xref type="see" seq="1389070">千鳥</xref>
+<xref type="see" seq="1389070">チドリ</xref>
@@ -24 +24 @@
-<xref type="see" seq="1181730">鶯・1</xref>
+<xref type="see" seq="1181730">ウグイス・1</xref>

>I've seen editors in the past refer to the oldness of kokugo citations, but from my understanding, Kojien intentionally records the *earliest* known usage of a word.

I know this is true for Nikk, so probably for koj too. Daij OTOH don't normally go for the oldest citation, but they both have archaic examples for all senses here, so I'm not sure.

* wisdom: many birds; various kinds of birds.

Hmm, I think it'd be strange for Meikyo to explicitly tag the other two senses but not the first one. The first sense is also in Shinmeikai. We usually look at presence in these two kokugos to determine modernity of senses. It's not in the usual JEs, but it is in Wisdom, and presence in JEs is also another factor we use. It's also in NHK Accent dictionary.

I've seen editors in the past refer to the oldness of kokugo citations, but from my understanding, Kojien intentionally records the *earliest* known usage of a word. Don't have a source for this, but I've never exactly seen modern citations from Kojien. Daijisen, in contrast, cites a 20th-century poet.

Koj, Daijr/s

When Rene amended it in 2008 he added "arch" to sense 1 - Koj quotes 万葉集 for it. I think they're all arch.
Messy to do that extraction.  There are about 1200 multi-sense entries with "arch" on the first one. Most have it on all. I can dig further I guess.

@@ -11,0 +12 @@
+<misc>&arch;</misc>

meikyo has 〔古〕 on senses 2 and 3, not on 1.

I don't think we need to specify the scientific name when it's arch / less common synonym (there's the xref)

Jim, would it be possible to make a list of all jmdict entries where the first sense is arch, but one or more subsequent senses aren't? Arch should never lead in such entries, right?

@@ -12 +11,0 @@
-<misc>&arch;</misc>
@@ -18,0 +18 @@
+<misc>&arch;</misc>
@@ -24 +24,2 @@
-<gloss>Japanese bush warbler (Horornis diphone)</gloss>
+<misc>&arch;</misc>
+<gloss>Japanese bush warbler</gloss>