233 
THE LATE PREBENDARY GORDON. 
N the death of the Rev. Prebendary Gordon, of Harting, 
Sussex, which took place on September 21, the Sel- 
borne Society has lost a very warm friend and sup- 
porter. 
Vicar for thirty years of the little Sussex village of Harting, 
which lies under the northern slope of the South Downs, in a 
lovely tract of country, and constantly walking over his widely- 
scattered parish to visit the more distant members of his flock, 
he knew and loved every inch of the country, and studied it with 
the eye of a naturalist. 
From long study he knew every kind of bird that visited 
those parts, looking out for the early arrival of the swallows — 
the date of their coming being always noted by him — and 
watching with interest the arrival of our other migrants. He 
came gradually to be looked upon as one of the great authorities 
on Sussex birds, and was written to and consulted on any diffi- 
cult point by naturalists in all parts of Sussex, and indeed far 
beyond that count)’. 
He loved the birds, and taught his school -children and 
village people to love them, and not only to love them, but also 
to study their habits and take an interest in them, and the dis- 
trict became a home and a protected place for the birds. 
His enjoyment of the beauty of Nature was intense, whether 
it were the evening sunlight tinting the soft outlines of the 
Downs, which he would watch with delight from his garden, or 
the sight of the first “ rosy plumelets ” of the larch, that he 
would bring in from his drive in the early spring days ; every- 
where he was always on the look-out for the thousand delights 
that may be found by those who, like himself, are loving students 
of Nature. 
He was an able lecturer, all he said and did being full of a 
vigorous and interesting personality. He took as his chief sub- 
jects the lives and habits of the birds ; but he has also spoken on 
botany, a subject in which he was keenly interested, discovering 
several of our rarer flowers and plants in the district round 
Harting, hitherto unnoted as known in that part. The neigh- 
bourhood is particularly rich in orchises, growing on the chalk 
slopes and in the sheltered hollows of the Downs, and to his 
great delight he raised the recorded number as found in Harting 
parish to nineteen different species. But the habitats of these 
rarer flowers he only disclosed to those whom he could trust as 
lovers and preservers of Nature. 
He was for many years an ardent bee-keeper, lecturing on 
“bee-keeping” to Sussex audiences, and he tells us that for 
the first five years in which he kept bees he watched their habits 
daily. 
Mr. Gordon was something of an antiquary, always on the 
look-out for any old coins turned up in his neighbourhood, and 
