Henry Seebohm was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 steel manufacturer, and amateur ornithologist, oologist and traveller.

Seebohm was born in Bradford

Bradford

Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

. His interest in natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 led him to travel widely, in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, and South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. His expeditions to the Yenisey tundra

Tundra

In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr "uplands," "treeless mountain tract." There are three types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine...

 of Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

 were described in his two books, Siberia in Europe (1880) and Siberia in Asia (1882), which were combined in the posthumous publication The Birds of Siberia (1901).

He was one of the first Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an ornithologists to accept the American trinomial system to classify sub-species.

Seebohm's other publications included A History of British Birds (1883), The Geographical Distribution of the family Charadriidae (1887), The Birds of the Japanese Empire (1890) and A Monograph of the Turdidae (1898).

A number of birds were named after Seebohm, including the Grey Emu-tail

Grey Emu-tail

The Grey Emu-Tail , also known as the Madagascan Grassbird or Feather-tailed Warbler, is a species of Old World warbler in the Sylviidae family.It is found only in Madagascar....

 Dromaeocercus seebohmi by Richard Bowdler Sharpe

Richard Bowdler Sharpe

Richard Bowdler Sharpe was an English zoologist.-Biography:Sharpe was born in London and studied at Brighton College, The King's School, Peterborough and Loughborough Grammar School. At the age of sixteen he went to work for Smith & Sons in London...

.

Bibliographic Literature

• Seebohm, H. (1901, reprinted 1985). The Birds of Siberia: To the Petchora Valley. Alan Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-86299-259-1
• Seebohm, H. (1901, reprinted 1985). The Birds of Siberia: The Yenesei. Alan Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-86299-260-5
• The Travelling Naturalists by Clare Lloyd. (Study of 18th Century Natural History - Includes Charles Waterton
  Charles Waterton
  Charles Waterton was an English naturalist and explorer.-Heritage and Life:"Squire" Waterton was born at Walton Hall, Wakefield, Yorkshire to Thomas Waterton and Anne Bedingfield. He was of a Roman Catholic landed gentry family descended from Reiner de Waterton...
  
  , John Hanning Speke
  John Hanning Speke
  John Hanning Speke was an officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa and who is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile.-Life:...
  
  , Henry Seebohm and Mary Kingsley
  Mary Kingsley
  Mary Henrietta Kingsley was an English writer and explorer who greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and African people.-Early life:Kingsley was born in Islington, London on 13 October 1862...
  
  ) Contains colour and black and white reproductions.

Footnotes

• Internet Archive Coloured Figuures of the Eggs of British Birds with Descriptive Notices 1896
• Illustrations from Monograph of the Turdidae