Classification, Observational Practice, and Henry Seebohm’s The Birds of the Japanese Empire in Late-Victorian Britain

Abstract

In the latter months of 1890 the ornithologist Henry Seebohm (1832–1895) published his transnationally well-received The birds of the Japanese Empire . However, although travelling widely to places such as Greece, South Africa and Siberia, Seebohm never visited Japan. Instead, his knowledge of Japanese birds was gathered through second-hand methods including knowledge and network building, specimen acquiring and comparing and the adoption of a novel classification system. These observational methods of Seebohm as an ‘armchair’ practitioner served to enhance his name as an authority on Japanese birds. Despite an increase in scholarship surrounding the emergence of professionalized twentieth-century Japanese imperial ornithology, little attention has been paid to the various Victorian naturalists who were central to its nineteenth-century origins. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to document the importance of one such naturalist by focusing on Seebohm’s active years between 1878 and 1890. Through this analysis I argue that Seebohm’s observational practices, particularly his use of a novel trinomial classification, were central to securing his credibility on Japanese birds despite never visiting Japan, and that consequently his 1890 book became a landmark in the development of ornithology in the Japanese Empire.