RICHARD BOWDLER SHARPE. 277 



character of the task may thus be realised, and it says 

 much for the extraordinary industry and power of work 

 possessed by Sharpe that he was able to write no fewer 

 than eleven of the twenty-seven volumes of which the 

 " Catalogue of Birds " consists, while he was co-author 

 with his colleague, Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, of two others. 

 Some indication of Sharpe's share in the whole work 

 may be gained by the statement that out of 11,548 species 

 described in the Catalogue, 5,181 are contained in his 

 portion, and 6,367 in those parts written by the ten other 

 authors. Volume I. was published in 1874, only two 

 years after Sharpe entered the Museum, and it would 

 probably be difficult to find in the annals of the Depart- 

 ment another instance of a book of this size and character 

 having been commenced and completed within two years 

 of the author's appointment to the staff. 



Another official publication for which Dr. Sharpe is 

 responsible is his " Hand-List of the Genera and Species 

 of Birds," in five volumes, the last volume having been 

 finished and issued within a few weeks of his death. 

 Although some disagreement with Dr. Sharpe's system 

 of classification and arrangement as given in the Hand-List 

 has been expressed by some of his brother ornithologists, 

 the great value of the Hand-List has been widely 

 recognised, and its completion has been warmly welcomed 

 by ornithologists in all parts of the world. 



Prodigious as was the labour involved in the writing 

 of these volumes, their preparation formed only a part 

 of Sharpe's duties. It may here be said that much of his 

 private time was devoted to Museum affairs, in fact a 

 great portion of the Hand-List was written at his home 

 after the day's toil at South Kensington. 



From the day he entered the Museum in 1872 to the 

 last hour (literally) that he spent in his beloved Bird 

 Room in Cromwell Road, he never ceased to use every 

 effort to increase and enrich the collection under his 

 charge. No opportunity was missed, whether by per- 

 suasive supplication or seductive appeal to the generosity 



