I 9 2I.] 
Obituary . 
729 
William Warde Fowler. 
By the death of Mr. William Warde Fowler, which occurred 
at Kiugham in Oxfordshire on 14 June last, we are deprived 
of one who combined the rare distinction of being both a 
classical scholar and an ornithologist. 
Born at Langford Budville, Somerset, on 16 May, 1847, 
he was the second son of Mr. John Coke Fowler, a stipendiary 
magistrate at Swansea. From Marlborough he proceeded to 
Oxford, where he matriculated at New College, but he won 
a scholarship at Lincoln in the same year, with which College 
he was closely associated for the rest of his life, being elected 
a Fellow in 1872. He graduated in 1870 taking a first class 
in Lit. Hum., and he served as Tutor and Sub-Rector 
of his college until he retired from active work a few 
years ago. 
Wardens first and perhaps best-known work, 4 A year with 
the Birds,’ was published in 1886 under the pen-name of 
“ An Oxford Tutor.’ 5 It combined personal charm and good 
scholarship with a love and power of observation new to that 
generation of Oxford men. The book deals with bird-life as 
seen at Oxford, at the writer’s country home at Kingham in 
the valley of the Evenlode, and with observations made 
in the Alps of Switzerland. The second edition contains a 
good list of the Oxford birds. His other collected studies 
were 4 Tales of the Birds/ published in 1888, 4 Summer 
Studies of Birds and Books/ 1895, and 4 More Tales of 
the Birds/ in 1902 ; while in 1901, in collaboration with 
Prof. L. C. Miall, he edited with introduction and notes an 
edition of White’s Selborne. 
Perhaps his most remarkable observations were those on 
the Marsh-Warbler (Acrocephalus palustris ). Owing to its 
very close resemblance to the Reed-Warbler, it escaped the 
attention of the earlier British ornithologists, and it was not 
recognized as a British bird even so late as when Newton 
published his edition of Yarrell. Between the years 1892 
and 1905 Mr. Fowler found it nesting every year near his 
home at Kingham, on the Evenlode, in Oxfordshire ; and in 
