Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
By 1799
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale, Lecture on Natural History 25. (ca. 1799). Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40. / https://ansp.org/research/library/archives/0000-0099/coll0040/
Additional Source Text:
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) wrote, in his 25th Lecture (ca. 1799): "No. 748. Little Heron. Senegal Bittern Lath. Syn. III. i. p. 67. n. 29. Petit Heron roux, du Sénégal. Buff. pl. enl. 315. Ardea senegalensis Linn. Recd. this from Batavia [= Java, Indonesia]." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)
A slip of loose paper tucked into Peale's 36th lecture contains a list of waterbirds with the following entry: "Senegal bittern (A. senegalensis) [from] Sweden" (ANSP Archives, coll. 40). This locality error is presumably a lapsus calami, as it conflicts with the lecture entry.
Peale wrote, in "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806): "Less than either of them [i.e., Least Bittern, Ixobrychus exilis; and Squacco Heron, Ardeola ralloides] is the Senegal Bittern (a. Sengalensis)." (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)
Notes:
The editor (MRH) has been unable to confirm the source of Peale’s specimens from Java, Indonesia, but there is ample reason to suspect that he received them from Thomas Horsfield (1773-1859), the physician and naturalist. In 1799, Horsfield, who was born and raised in southeast Pennsylvania, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, took a medical post on the merchant ship China, which sailed to Java. He remained there until 1819, during which time he collected specimens on behalf of Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (1781-1826), governor of the Dutch East Indies. In January 1799, before he left for Java, Horsfield visited Peale’s Museum and purchased a ticket “for the year 1799 which intitles [sic] the Purchaser to the use of the Museum every day while the Sun is above the Horizon. Each Ticket [cost] two Dollars.” His signature (“Thos. Horsfield”) appears in a Peale Museum Subscription Book (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481). / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Horsfield
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Javan Pond Heron
Current Scientific Name
Ardeidae | Ardeola speciosa
