RICHARD BOWDLER SHARPE. 275 



years. At nine years of age he was transferred to Peter- 

 borough, where his cousin, the Revd. James Wallace, was 

 installed as Master of the Grammar School. Here the 

 youngster gained a King's Scholarship, which not only 

 guaranteed his education but carried with it a small 

 amount of money, which he increased by his services as 

 a choir-boy in the Cathedral. His cousin, the Head- 

 master, having accepted a similar post at Loughborough 

 Grammar School, the boy followed thither, and was 

 again successful in carrying off the chief prizes of the 

 school. 



At the age of sixteen young Sharpe came up to London, 

 and obtained a clerkship in the establishment of Messrs. 

 W. H. Smith & Son. But even at that early period 

 he was devoting every moment of his spare time to the 

 study of birds, with the determination to earn his living 

 as an ornithologist, and, as a matter of fact, he commenced 

 to write his "Monograph of the Kingfishers" at 186, 

 Strand. After being with Messrs. Smith & Son for nearly 

 two years, Sharpe, in 1865, entered the employment of 

 Mr. B. Quaritch, the well-known bookseller, where he 

 had good opportunities of seeing the finest books on birds. 

 It was at this stage of his life that he worked hard at his 

 first " Monograph," writing much of it in the small hours 

 of the morning, and applying every penny that could be 

 spared from his slender income to the purchase of 

 specimens of Kingfishers. 



In 1867, at the age of nineteen, Sharpe was appointed 

 first Librarian to the Zoological Society of London, a post 

 he held for more than five years. Commenced when he 

 was seventeen years of age and finished when he was 

 twenty-two, the " Monograph of the Kingfishers " was 

 published during these years. It was issued in quarterly 

 parts, and illustrated by a hundred and twenty-one 

 coloured plates. The publishing price was eight guineas, 

 but the book speedily ran out of print, and now commands 

 a much higher figure in the market. Of this masterly 

 work a well-known naturalist said that it was " destined 



