Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
By 1799
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale, Lecture on Natural History 26. (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) described adults in breeding plumage in his 26th Lecture (ca. 1799): "917. Black breasted Plover.
Throat, Breast & under part of the body, black; back white barred with black; wing quils dark barred with white. It is commonly called the Egg Harbour Plover. 918. Female is of the same colour." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)
Peale also described what seem likely to be non-breeding specimens: "No. 913. Bullhead Plover. The upper parts cinereous, speckled with white; wing quills brown with white shafts; under parts of the body white. No. 914. Female has no difference of plumage. This plover is generally found in open fields." (ANSP Archives, coll. 40)
Peale wrote, in "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806): "our Bull head Plover is much like [the Golden Plover of Europe] except it is grey where the other is yellow." (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)
Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described this species under the name "Black-bellied Plover / Charadrius apricarius" in American Ornithology vol. 7 (Pl. 57), where "Peale's Museum, No. 4196" was cited (Wilson 1813: 41). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175507#page/51/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175507#page/41/mode/1up (plate)
Notes:
Peale wrote to Samuel Latham Mitchill (1764-1831) on 26 July 1803: “I don’t know whether the Plover which you call Frost bird of long Island, is found in the neighbourhood of this City. Those I have got are of a different colour from the Charadrius pluvialis. And I have called ours the Bullhead plover. The upper parts cenerious speckled with white— wing quills brown with white shafts, the under part of the body white” (Miller 1988: 586, Selected Papers, Vol. 2, part 1, Yale University Press). Peale had probably recently seen a paper published by Mitchill’s brother in The Medical Repository (1803), which included the “Grey plover, or frost-bird” among a list of birds of Long Island (Murphy 1962, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. 106: 48-52).
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Black-bellied Plover
Current Scientific Name
Charadriidae | Pluvialis squatarola
