Eugene W. Oates

Eugene William Oates (31 December 1845 – 16 November 1911) was an English naturalist and a civil engineer who worked on road projects in Burma.

Eugene William Oates
Oates in 1908
Born	(1845-12-31)31 December 1845 Sicily, Italy
Died	16 November 1911(1911-11-16) (aged 65) Edgbaston, England
Education	Sydney College, Bath
Occupation	Ornithologist

Oates was born in Sicily and educated in Bath, England. For a time he attended Sydney College, Bath and later under private tutors.^[1] He was a civil servant in the Public Works Department in India and Burma from 1867 to 1899. He retired to England, where he compiled a catalogue of the birds' eggs in the Natural History Museum, and served as secretary of the British Ornithologists' Union from 1898 to 1901.^[2][3]

He died in Edgbaston.^[4]

A species of Indian snake, Typhlops oatesii,^[5] a Burmese frog, Humerana oatesii, and seven species of birds are named in his honor.^[6]

Publications

• Oates, E.W. (1883). A handbook to the birds of British Burmah including those found in the adjoining state of Karennee. Vol II. London: R.H. Porter.
• Oates, E.W. (1888). "On the Indian and Burmese Scorpions of the Genus Isometrus, with Description of Three new Species". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 3: 244–250.
• Oates, E.W. (1889-1890). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Birds.—Vol. I & II. London: Secretary of State for India in Council. (Taylor & Francis, printers).
• Oates, E.W. (1899). A manual of the Game Birds of India. Vol. II, p. 139-146. Bombay: Cambridge.