Cabanis was born in
Berlin to an old Huguenot family who had moved from France. His father Benoit-Jean (1774–1838) and mother Maria Luise (1783–1849) both came from families that were in the textile industry. Little is known of his early life. He studied at the
University of Berlin from 1835 to 1839, and then travelled to
North America, working as a museum assistant in Carolina. He returned in 1841 with a large
natural history collection. He was assistant at the
Natural History Museum of Berlin (which was at the time the Berlin University Museum) and in 1850 he became the curator of birds, taking over from
Martin Lichtenstein.
Charles Lucien Bonaparte had offered him a position at the
Jardin des Plantes but Cabanis turned it down. He founded the
Journal für Ornithologie in 1853, editing it for the next forty-one years, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law
Anton Reichenow. Cabanis considered the journal
Naumannia, the official organ of the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft, edited by
Eduard Baldamus, as too narrow in its geographic scope and its German centricity. Cabanis married Jeanne daughter of Ambrosius Rinaldi in Berlin in 1849. They had six sons and three daughters. He died in
Friedrichshagen. A number of birds are named after him, including
Cabanis's bunting Emberiza cabanisi,
Cabanis's spinetail Synallaxis cabanisi,
azure-rumped tanager Poecilostreptus cabanisi and
Cabanis's greenbul Phyllastrephus cabanisi. ==References==