262 obituary Notice. f,^' 



tCmli 

 April 



Obituary Notice. 



Following the announcement of the death of Dr. R. Bowdler 

 Sharpe in the last issue of T/ie Emu (p. 178), with the publica- 

 tion of a letter he was good enough to forward to the editors, a 

 further notice of that distinguished ornithologist is now given. 



Dr. Sharpe was present at the meeting of the British Orni- 

 thologists' Club on the evening of the i6th December last, when 

 he seemed to be in his usual cheerful mood and health. The 

 following day he took to his bed, pneumonia and other com- 

 plications supervened, and he passed away early on the morning 

 of Christmas Day. 



The following sketch of his ornithological career appeared in 

 the recent Jubilee Supplement of The Ibis {\(^og) : — 



" Richard Bowdler Sharpe was born on the 22nd of Novem- 

 ber, 1847, being the eldest son of Thomas Bowdler Sharpe, a 

 well-known publisher in his day. At the age of six he was 

 sent to Brighton, where his aunt, the widow of the Rev. James 

 Lloyd Wallace, formerly head-master of Sevenoaks Grammar 

 School, had a boys' school, to be well grounded in Latin and 

 Greek. At nine years of age he was transferred to Peterborough 

 Grammar School, of which his cousin, the Rev. James Wallace, 

 had been appointed head-master after his return from the 

 Crimea, where he had served as an Army-Chaplain. Within a 

 few days of his arrival at Peterborough, Sharpe gained a King's 

 scholarship, which gave him a free education, while he was also 

 a choir-boy in the Cathedral. He left Peterborough with the 

 Rev. James Wallace, on the appointment of the latter to the 

 head-mastership of Loughborough Grammar School, and 

 studied there for some time, commencing his collection of bird- 

 skins ; he had already made a large collection of eggs while at 

 Peterborough. He was afterwards sent, with the object of 

 studying for the army, to a private tutor at Steeple Gidding in 

 Huntingdonshire, the Rector, the Rev. C. Molyneaux, having 

 been a school-fellow of his father's. Here he remembers having 

 seen the late Lord Lilford, with his Falconer and a full train, 

 hawking on Great Gidding Field. Having no taste for mathe- 

 matics, however, he did little work, but devoted most of his time 

 to bird collecting and taxidermy, making at the same time a 

 considerable collection of insects, and having always a large 

 assortment of living birds. 



" His father, who was then living at Cookham, wished the boy 

 to prepare for Oxford, as his mathematical training for the 

 Royal Engineers had been a failure; but the lad thought of 

 nothing but bird-collecting. 



" His first paper, on the Birds of Cookham and the neigh- 

 bourhood, appeared in the Journal of the High Wycombe 

 Natural History Society, and his collection of specimens, made 

 at this time, is in the Natural History Museum. 



