46 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



whose works are at Eotherhara. In this capacity he amassed a 

 considerable fortune, of which he gave generously and for the 

 love of science to his chosen department, Ornithology. 



His love of Birds and Bird-life dates from his earliest days ; and 

 as his business pursuits became less engrossing, he devoted his 

 time and energies with a genuine enthusiasm to study in the 

 field, with special attention to Geographical Distribution. In 1875, 

 in company with Mr. J. Harvie Brown, he made an excursion 

 into the Valley of the Lower Petchora in JNorth-East Russia, the 

 results of wbich, reported in ' The Ibis ' for 1876, formed the 

 subject-matter of his 'Siberia in Europe' (1880). In 1877 he 

 undertook the still more enterprising task of a journey into the 

 Valley of the Tenesay, with the result that he in 1882 published 

 a volume entitled ' Siberia in Asia.' The two volumes will rank 

 among the leading treatises on Systematic Ornithology. In the 

 same year (1882) Seebohm published the first volume of his 

 ' History of British Birds and their Eggs,' the fourth and con- 

 cluding volume of which appeared three years later. Turning 

 his attention next to Wading Birds and their allies, he pub- 

 lished in 1888 a beautiful monograph on the Limicolae, entitled 

 ' The Greographical Distribution of Plovers, Sandpipers, and 

 Snipes.' In addition to those elaborate volumes, he compiled 

 for the Trustees of the British Museum of Natural History the 

 Eifth volume of the ' Catalogue of Birds,' which deals fur the 

 most part with the Thrushes ; and he left unfinished a monograph, 

 on this group, in which it was intended to publish a coloured illus- 

 tration of every species. 



Seebohm's leading works deal not only with the taxonomy of 

 Ornithology, but also with Greographical Distribution. In this 

 department he achieved much that will rank high in the history of 

 the science ; and two treatises, which he published late in life, 

 on the ' Classification of Birds ' are noteworthy for the utiliza- 

 tion of skeletal characters, in which he acted largely under the 

 advice of the late Kitchen Parker, chief among Avian Osteologists. 

 His work was truly scientific ; popular recognition he neither 

 sought nor received : devotion to and concentration upon one early 

 selected line of research marked his actions ; aud in this his 

 achievements may be really termed great. 



Seebohm was of a nervous temperament and of a highly sym- 

 pathetic aud generous disposition. He presented to our National 

 Museum a vast collection of birds, many of which were obtained 

 at great expense and not a little risk to his collectors. He also 

 gave to the Nation an unrivalled collection of birds' eggs, which 

 was arranged under his personal supervision. 



He was a Fellow of the Zoological Society, and a Eellow and 

 afterwards a Secretary of the Royal Greographical Society ; and 

 he was a Member of the British Ornithologists' Union, and of the 

 Anthropological Institute. Upon the work of all he has left his 

 mark. He took an interest iu the doings of the British Asso- 



