Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/197

 have been at Rome in 721, and there signed the decrees of a Roman council; but Lanigan considers this a mistake, and nothing seems to be known of the bishop in question.

He is with more reason identified with the Sedilius or Siadhal, son of Feradach, who was abbot of Kildare, and died in 828. He is described by Hepidanus, a monk of St. Gall, who wrote in 818, as Sedulius Scotus, a ‘distinguished author.’ The works of Sedulius consist of a Latin commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul, drawn from the works of the fathers, and one on the Gospel of St. Matthew, collected from various sources. They are frequently quoted by Archbishop Ussher in his ‘Religion of the Ancient Irish,’ and they have been published in the ‘Bibliotheca Patrum,’ where they are assigned to ‘Sedulius Scotus.’ According to the ‘Annals of the Four Masters,’ Sedulius was abbot of Kildare, and died in 828.



SEEBOHM, HENRY (1832–1895), ornithologist, born on 12 July 1832, was eldest son of Benjamin Seebohm of Horton Grange, Bradford, Yorkshire (who came to England from Germany in 1815), by his wife Esther Wheeler, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire. His parents belonged to the Society of Friends, and he was educated at the Friends' school, York, where he developed a taste for natural history. At an early age he engaged in business, and ultimately settled at Sheffield as a manufacturer of steel. His spare time was devoted to ornithology, and from time to time he made journeys into Holland, Greece, Asia Minor, Scandinavia, Germany, and Siberia to collect and study birds in their native haunts.

One of his most successful expeditions was to the valley of the Lower Petchora in 1875, with Mr. Harvie-Brown, when the eggs of the grey plover and of many rare species of birds were obtained. The account of this voyage, as well as of a trip to Heligoland, whither he went to study the migration of the birds at the house of the celebrated ornithologist, Herr Gätke, was given in his ‘Siberia in Europe,’ 8vo, London, 1880. In 1877, accompanied by Captain Wiggins, he visited the valley of the Yenesei, where further ornithological discoveries of great importance were made, and recorded in his ‘Siberia in Asia,’ 8vo, London, 1882. Later he visited Southern Europe and South Africa to study European birds in their winter quarters, and to collect materials for his work on ‘The Geographical Distribution of the Family Charadriidæ,’ 4to, London, 1887.

Seebohm joined the British Ornithologists' Union and the Zoological Society in 1873; he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1878, and was one of the secretaries from June 1890 till his death. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in December 1879.

In later years he resided at South Kensington and Maidenhead. He died on 26 Nov. 1895.

Besides the works already named, Seebohm was the author of: He also contributed upwards of eighty papers, chiefly on ornithological subjects, between 1877 and 1895, to the ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’ ‘The Ibis,’ and other scientific publications. He left unfinished a work on ‘The Eggs of British Birds’ and on ‘Thrushes.’ He was a liberal contributor to the national collection during his lifetime, and at his death left his whole ornithological collection to the British Museum (Natural History).
 * 1) ‘Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum, vol. v., Turdidæ,’ 8vo, London, 1881.
 * 2) ‘A History of British Birds and their Eggs,’ 8vo, London, 1883–5.
 * 3) ‘Classification of Birds,’ 8vo, London, 1890; supplement 1895.
 * 4) ‘The Birds of the Japanese Empire,’ 8vo, London, 1890.
 * 5) ‘Geographical Distribution of British Birds,’ 8vo, London, 1893.
 * 6) ‘Address to the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union,’ 8vo, London, 1893.



SEED, JEREMIAH (1700–1747), divine, born in 1700, was son of Jeremiah Seed, who graduated B.A. from Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1682, and was rector of Clifton, Westmoreland, from 1707 until his death in 1722 (Grad. Cant. p. 346; and, Hist. of Cumb. and West. i. 414). He was educated at Lowther grammar school, and matriculated on 7 Nov. 1716 at Queen's College, Oxford, proceeding B.A. on 13 Feb. 1721–2, and M.A. 1725 (, Alumni, 1715–1886, iv. 1271). He was chosen a fellow in 1732, and became for some years curate to Dr. Waterland, vicar of Twickenham, whose funeral sermon he preached on 4 Jan. 1741 (2nd edit. London, 1742). Seed was presented by his college in the same year to the rectory of Knight's Enham, Hampshire, where he remained until his death on 10 Dec. 1747. 