Finsch was born at
Bad Warmbrunn in
Silesia to Mortiz Finsch and Mathilde Leder. His father was in the glass trade and he too trained as a glass painter. An interest in birds led him to use his artistic skills for the purpose. Finsch went to Budapest in 1857 and studied at the
Royal Hungarian University, earning money by preparing natural history specimens. He then spent two years in Russe, Bulgaria on an invitation from the Austrian Consul and gave private tutoring in German while exploring the birdlife of the region. He published his first paper in the
Journal fur Ornithologie on the birds of Bulgaria. This experience helped him obtain a curatorial position at the
Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in
Leiden (1862–1865) assisting
Herman Schlegel. In 1864 he returned to Germany on the suggestion of
Gustav Hartlaub to become curator of the museum in
Bremen and became its director in 1876. After publishing the two volume monographs on the parrots of the world,
Die Papageien, monographisch bearbeitet (1867–68), he obtained an honorary doctorate from the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn. Apart from ornithology he also took an interest in ethnology. In 1876 he accompanied the zoologist
Alfred Brehm on an expedition to
Turkestan and northwest
China. He returned to Germany in 1882 and began to promote the creation of German colonies in the Pacific along with the
South Sea Plotters, an influential group led by a banker
Adolph von Hansemann. In 1884 he returned aboard the steamer
Samoa to New Guinea as
Bismarck's Imperial Commissioner to explore potential harbours under the guise of scientists and negotiated for the north-eastern portion of that island, together with
New Britain and
New Ireland, to become a German protectorate. Several species of birds bear his name, including the
lilac-crowned parrot (
Amazona finschi), Finsch's wheatear (
Oenanthe finschii), Finsch's bulbul (
Iole finschii), and the
grey-headed parakeet (
Psittacula finschii). A species of monitor lizard,
Varanus finschi, is named after him, because he collected what would become the
holotype for this species. The crater
Finsch on the
Moon is also named in his honor. In 2008, following international treaties, some of the human remains that he had collected from Cape York and the Torres Straits that were held in the Charité Medical University in Berlin were repatriated. Additional remains have also been repatriated. ==Published works==