Studies on the unpublished specimens of Japanese animals collected by von Siebold and still preserved in the museums in the Netherlands

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Von Siebold collected, with the help of his assistant H. Burger, numerous specimens of Japanese animals in Japan and slopped them off to the Netherlands. Those were studied by specialists at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden (Leiden Museum) and the results were published in Fauna Japonica which was edited and published by von Siebold. The Leiden Museum still holds a large number of these specimens.We conducted the survey mostly at the Leiden Museum, examining a total of 2, 800 specimens of coelenterates, tentacles, insects, crustaceans, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Some species are represented by a fairly large series of specimens.Part of the von Siebold-Burger's zoological collection was distributed to other natural history museums in Europe and sold to dealers. In order to locate the specimens brought out, we examined documents including exchange lists now housed in the Leiden Museum. The difference between the number of the specimens recorded and the actual number of specimens now at the Leiden Museum shows that nearly 60 % of the birds and mammals and 15 % of the crustaceans were brought out.Color pictures of crustaceans, fishes and mammals made by Kawahara Keiga now deposited in the Leiden Museum were studied. In addition, we found another 44 beautifully executed pictures of amphibians and reptiles which were in all probability made by Kawahara Keiga at the request of von Siebold.In the Leiden Museum, we discovered a lithographic stone with an indication of Fauna Japonica. A print fairly beautifully reproduced using this showed that it is the fifteenth plate of the sixth volume of Fauna Japonica in which two pictures of a sea cucumber are illustrated. This fact indicates that at least 15 plates were prepared for the unpublished sixth volume of Fauna Japonica dealing with Echinodermata.