MEMOIR. 



Henry Seebohm was born at Bradford, in Yorkshire, in Jul}', 

 1832, and at the time of his death was but 63 years of age, still 

 full of energy and the elaboration of schemes for the production 

 of even greater works than he had hitherto attempted. An 

 attack of influenza, in the early part of 1895, rendered him so 

 weak that nothing but absolute rest could have restored him to 

 health, and this the activity of his brain prevented him from 

 achieving, so that the malignant anaemia to which he succumbed, 

 had full play, and he expired on the 26th of November, 1895. 

 The energy of Henry Seebohm was a source of admiration to 

 all who knew him, and to none of his many excellent qualities 

 has greater tribute been paid by ornithologists of all countries 

 than to the indomitable zeal with which he followed up his 

 scientific pursuits. 



He was educated at the Friends' Schools at York, where he 

 had for a schoolfellow Mr. J. G. Baker, F.E.S., the celebrated 

 botanist of Kew, and at first Seebohm's biological studies seem 

 to have been botanical, for he began by making a collection of 

 British ferns. After much hard work and devotion to business 

 he became a successful steel manufacturer at Sheffield, and was 

 at last able to spend more leisure in pursuit of his favourite study 

 of birds. In his work on "British Birds" are many records of 

 his early experiences in various portions of Yorkshire, the Fame 

 Islands, etc., and finally scarcely a year elapsed that he did not 

 visit some part of Europe, one of his most interesting excursions 

 being made in Greece and Asia Minor, in company with Dr. 

 Kriiper. He was the most careful of diary-keepers, as the writer 

 can testify. Every evening the events of the day were chronicled 

 and read over to his companions, any additional notes occurring 

 to the latter being carefully taken down. 



When I first visited him at Sheffield, more than 20 years ago, he 

 had already got together a very fine collection of European birds' 



