20 Obituary. 



Mr. Frank Pym, of Kingwilliunistown, CO., reports the 

 Storks ill flocks of 50 to 100 on the 25th January, dis- 

 appearing in a north-easterly direction on the 20th February. 

 He says locusts were not to be seen, but there were an 

 unusually large number of grasshoppers, which probably 

 accounts for the birds three weeks' sojourn in that district. 

 The last Stork seen by nie was on the 30th March, when a 

 solitary individual, which had been frequenting a barley- 

 field near the zoo, suddenly disappeared. 



VI. — Obituary. Dr. R. Bowdlek Sharpe, Asst. Keeper, 

 British Museum. 

 (Plate I.) 

 South Afkican ornithologists will be sorry to hear of 

 the sudden death of Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, whose name is 

 indelibly stamped upon their memory by his edition of 

 E. L. Layard's well-known ' Birds of South Africa." Dr. 

 Sharpe was an honorary member of many ornithological 

 societies, as well as that of our Union. The following brief 

 notice of his life is taken from the London ' Times ' of 31st 

 December, 1909 : — 



" Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe. 



" We regret to announce that Dr. Richard Bowdler Sharpe, 

 the well-known ornithologist, and an Assistant Keeper in 

 the Department of Zoology at the Natural History Museum, 

 died on Christmas Day at his house in Barrowgate Road, 

 Chiswick. 



" Richaril Bowdler Sharpe was born in London on 

 November 22, 1847, and was the eldest son of Mr. Thomas 

 Bowdler Sharpe, publisher, of Cookham and Malvern Link. 

 He was educated at Brighton, and at Peterborough and 

 Louohboroueh Grammar Schools. Li 1863 he entered the 

 service of Messrs. W. H, Smith and Sons, and after a year 

 with Mr. Bernard Quaritch he became in 1867 the first 

 Librarian to the Zoological Sociely of London, a post which 

 he held until 1872, when he joined the British Museum as 

 Senior Assistant in the Department of Zoology, to become 

 an Assistant Keeper in 1895. 



