25 JUNE 1921, Page 13

THE LATE MR. WARDE FOWLER.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]

Sni,—Some of your readers may care to read a small personal reminiscence df Wards Fowler, student, scholar, historian, and lover of birds, who died last week at his Cotswold home at gingham. He was one of the party in the Argonaut for its Easter cruise of 1905, which took in the western coast of Asia Minor. One of the places visited was Asses, south of the Treed.

to which St. Paul went an foot from Troas on his third mis- sionary journey. The town stood finely. .some 700 or 800 feet above the sea, and there aro magnificent remains of the ancient walls and gates. As I went the- round I happened on Warde Fowler standing by himself, very intent and absorbed, but with his back turned to the finest of the gateways, On my asking him what he thought of it, his reply was, " The fact is I came to see the birds." The words are in a sense an epitome of his life. Enthusiastic and original student of antiquity as ho was, his real passion was for the birds of to-day, of which he has left on record so much that is beautiful and interesting in his Tales of the Birds and other writings.

It may be worth pointing out that the Times, in its full and sympathetic notice on Thursday, Rine 16th, omitted to mention a small book of his that was a good deal talked of when it came out, An Oxford Correspondence of 1903.—i am, Sir, &e.,