Passenger Pigeon (mounted taxidermy)

Object Status:

Unlocated

Primary Source Reference:

Charles Willson Peale, letter to Thomas Hall of Moorfields, London, dated 1793; Selected Papers, 2, part 1: 46.

Additional Source Text:

Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) sent "wild Pidgions Cock & hen" to Thomas Hall in London, in early 1793, in exchange for European specimens (Miller 1988: 46, Selected Papers, Vol. 2, part 1, Yale University Press).

Peale wrote, in his 30th Lecture (ca. 1799): "No. 1174. Migratory, or Passenger Pigeon, rather smaller than the domestic pigeon; bill black; round the eyes red; irides orange; top of the head, back of the neck and all the upper parts of cinerious brown; with some spots of black on the wings; the front of the neck & breast russet red, glossed with crimson on each side; tail long & conic, brown above & light underneath; feet red & claws black. Columba migratoria Linn. Pigeon de Passage, Buff. This bird inhabits North America for 20 to 60 degrees of Latitude. They are called at Moose fort and Sworn river, Wood Pigeons. [They] build in trees; lay 2 eggs, like those of other pigeons; are esteemed good eating. The meat is brown & rather dry, but have an agreeable flavor." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)

Peale continued: "Their chief food is acorns, and when there is a scarcity of mast as it is termed, the fruit of the oak, in the fall of the year, they visit Pennsylvania & all the Middle States in prodigious flights. And our markets are supplyed with vast quantities which are taken in nets, having what they call a stool Pigeon placed on a stick, which a person consealed at a small distance who moves it up & down by means of string. This attracts the flights of pigeons & they light by the stool pigeon to feed & a large net is thrown over them, and some hundreds is thus taken at a hawl. We have a few of them, perhaps every year, but in great flocks seldom. No. 1175. Female, much like the male except that the brown and red is of much lighter colour. No. 1178. A variety of plumage. This kind I find here in the month of May, and whether it is a different species, or a young bird in the spring dress, I have not yet been able to determine. I am rather inclined to the latter opinion. The tail is shorter & the plumage generally lighter, and much spotted with light spots over all the upper parts of the body." (ANSP Archives, coll. 40)

An undated list of 21 bird specimens in Peale's handwriting includes one "Wild Pigeon" (American Philosophical Society Library, Mss.B.P31).

Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described this (now extinct) species under the name "Passenger Pigeon / Columba migratoria" in American Ornithology vol. 5 (Pl. 44), where "Peale's Museum, No. 5084" was cited (Wilson 1812: 102). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175520#page/120/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175520#page/122/mode/1up (plate)

Notes:

After Peale's Museum closed, a portion of Peale's bird collection was purchased in 1850 by Moses Kimball (1809–95), who displayed it at his "Boston Museum". An advertisement in the Boston Transcript, printed 1 October 1850, stated that Kimball had acquired "One Half of the celebrated Peale's Philadelphia Museum". The other half of Peale's birds had been sold to the circus promoter P. T. Barnum (1810–91) and would be subsequently destroyed in a fire at his "American Museum" in New York City in July 1865. When the Boston Museum closed, Kimball's Peale remnants passed temporarily to the Boston Society of Natural History, who disposed of them to Charles J. Maynard (1845-1929), a local taxidermist. The specimens were stored in a barn in Massachusetts for several years, then eventually were deposited at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), Harvard University. By the time the collection was catalogued by Walter Faxon (1848-1920) at MCZ, in 1914, in virtually every case the original mounts and labels had been disassociated from the specimens, and an untold number were lost. Walter Faxon, "Relics of Peale's Museum," Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 59, no. 3 (July 1915): 134, speculated that MCZ 67843, a data-deficient specimen from the Boston Museum collection, "conforms so well to Wilson's figure ... that I incline to think it is the subject he drew." This may be true, but Peale had specimens of this abundant species in the museum as early as 1793, and he did not have space (or interest) to display duplicates. / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6339801#page/184/mode/1up Wilson (1810: viii, American Ornithology, vol. 2) stated that "no drawings have been, or will be made for this work, from any stuffed subjects, where living specimens of the same can be procured; yet the former serve a very important purpose; they enable the author to ascertain the real existence and residence of such subjects". / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175511#page/14/mode/1up Wilson deposited many specimens at Peale's Museum, after completing his drawings, but the combined evidence from American Ornithology and the Peale Museum Accessions Book (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481) suggests that he deposited probably fewer than 100 skins total (and possibly as few as 40-50), whereas many authors have assumed that all the "Peale numbers" cited in Wilson's work were those of his own specimens (e.g., "he contributed 279 specimens to the collection", Edward H. Burtt, Jr., and William E. Davis, Jr., 2013, Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology, Belknap Press, p. 310). This assumption appears to be based on a misunderstanding — Wilson was citing the numbers to give credit to Peale, to acknowledge his contributions, not to stake a claim to his own specimen deposits. If Burtt & Davis (2013) were correct, the "Catalogue of Duplicate Specimens" (APS Library, Mss.B.P31) would be full of Wilson's specimen deposits—but this is not the case. No duplicates of Passenger Pigeon are listed. To the editor's (MRH) knowledge, there is no evidence that Wilson deposited a Passenger Pigeon at Peale's Museum.

Specimen Type:

Dead/preserved

Current Common Name:

Passenger Pigeon

Current Scientific Name

Columbidae | Ectopistes migratorius

Repository:

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ 67843)