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OBITUARY. 



W. WARDE-FOWLER. 



It is a long time since the day when, as a rather timid under- 

 graduate, I found my way up the old stairs to Warde-Fowlei 's 

 rooms in Lincoln College. I came to talk about birds with an 

 ornithologist ; I went aw^ay having talked about birds, but 

 about many other things besides, with a remarkable and 

 lovable man who, among many other devotions, was devoted 

 to birds and their study. 



Warde-Fowler, if perhaps not that rarest of beings, a great 

 man, was certainly great as a man ; and the news of his death 

 will have meant to many, as it did to me, the loss of a friend. 

 I was privileged to spend occasional days and week-ends in 

 his chosen retirement at Kingham. We would tramp the 

 meadows or the hills all the afternoon, and in the midst of bird- 

 watching or stories of birds he would break off to tell me the 

 name and history of one of the fields, or to discuss the agri- 

 cultural system of Kingham in feudal times. He was interested 

 in the place and its history because he was unable to remain 

 uninterested in any of the people or things with which he 

 came into contact ; and luckity he has given us the fruits of 

 that interest in his village in Kingliam, Old and New, the only 

 book I know which has the same quality as White's Sdborne. 



It was the same with the birds. He began by loving birds ; 

 and because he had intellect as well as heart, he went on to 

 study them, as a glance at the well-used volumes in his library 

 showed. But he never ceased to love them for themselves ; 

 he was a naturalist, not a scientist, and did not go to birds 

 only because he wanted to find out something, or much less 

 only to satisfy a collector's instinct by collecting eggs, or skins, 

 or facts. 



In his latter years his deafness was a heav}^ trial ; he who 

 knew every bird by its note suffered the loss of their voices 

 one by one, first the low-voiced like the Cuckoo, but all in 

 time. In 1919 he took me to the Marsh -Warbler ground, and 

 there was a cock in full song. I had never seen or heard one, 

 so had to describe the unheard song to him before he was 

 satisfied that he had introduced me to the species. He 

 suffered much from rheumatism too ; but one day, after telling 

 me of the difficulties he had in getting much about, and in 

 hearing his birds, he ended with the characteristic sentence : 

 " But after all, I can still walk a good deal ; and I can always 

 find more than enough to interest me in any hedgerow." 



