352 Obituary. 



Oporto. According to Mr. Wm. Tait, the Crossbill is a rare 

 and occasional visitor in Portugal, merely appearing at 

 irregular intervals. He informs me that a few individuals 

 were observed in a garden near Oporto in November last, 

 and that a friend of his at Coimbra University, between 

 Oporto and Lisbon, had informed him that a large number 

 of Crossbills arrived there in October, some of the birds 

 being still in the neighbourhood at the time of his writing. 

 Unfortunately no specimens had been secured, and on 

 Mr. Tait writing to endeavour to obtain some, it was too 

 late, for the birds had all disappeared. This is to be 

 regretted, as it would have been interesting to have been able 

 to establish the identity of these birds, and to know whether 

 they formed part of the great invasion from North Europe, 

 or whether they belonged to the local Spanish form, which 

 is perhaps also resident in some parts of Portugal. 



XV.— Obituary. 



Dr. K. Bowdler Sharfe. 



Richard Bowdler Sharpe died at Chiswick on the 25th of 

 December, 1909, at the age of sixty-two. To the general 

 public he was best known as the head of the Bird Depart- 

 ment of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, 

 though, strictly speaking, this was not the official designa- 

 tion of the post which he so long occupied. To students 

 and fellow workers throughout the world he was much more 

 than this ; for his profession was his hobby, and he worked at 

 it with such unremitting energy and devotion as to distance 

 all competitors in the amount and quality of the scientific 

 work which he achieved. In his study of the vast collections 

 under his charge he acquired an unrivalled knowledge of the 

 bird-life of the world, estimated to include more than 18,000 

 species, almost any one of which he could name at sight, except 

 in the case of closely allied forms, which would necessitate 

 comparison with others. Further than this, he could tell 



