276 BRITISH BIRDS. 



to inaugurate a new era in the history of ornithology." 

 Now it can be affirmed that the prediction has been 

 verified. 



Having successfully completed his work on Kingfishers, 

 Sharpe began a comprehensive history of the " Birds 

 of Europe," in collaboration with Mr. H. E. Dresser, 

 to which he contributed a large amount of matter. 

 He had, however, to abandon the project before it 

 was finished, when, on the death of Mr. George R. 

 Gray, in the year 1872, he was offered and accepted 

 the post of a Senior Assistant in the Department of 

 Zoology of the British Museum. Dr. J. E. Gray was 

 then the Keeper of the Department, and it was on 

 his strong recommendation of Sharpe as a rising 

 ornithologist of considerable merit that he was specially 

 appointed to a senior position in the Museum to 

 take charge of the collection of birds. It is of interest 

 to note that Sharpe's appointment bears the signatures 

 of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait), the Lord 

 Chancellor (Roundell Palmer, Lord Selborne), and Mr. 

 Speaker Brand (afterwards Viscount Hampden), the three 

 Principal Trustees of the British Museum. 



The high reputation he already enjoyed as a working 

 ornithologist was such that very soon after he had entered 

 on his new duties Dr. Gray, on the suggestion of Dr. A. 

 Giinther, the distinguished zoologist, who succeeded Gray 

 as Keeper, entrusted him with the preparation of the 

 first volume of that monumental work, the " British 

 Museum Catalogue of Birds," the most exhaustive under- 

 taking of the kind in existence. The Catalogue embraces 

 not only a list of the specimens contained in the Museum 

 itself, but it gives a full description of every bird in the 

 world known at the time of publication, whether in the 

 Museum or in any other collection ; its changes of 

 plumage and the literature referring to its history and 

 determination, together with a brief record of the 

 geographical range of each species and an enumeration 

 of the specimens in the British Museum. The stupendous 



