Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
By 1799
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale, Lecture on Natural History 31. (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 31st Lecture (ca. 1799): "No. 1305. Hudsonian Thursh [sic]. this answers to the description of one [under] this name in Pennant's Arctic Zoology, with a black bill, general colour of the plumage deep bluish ash, head & neck of a russet colour, a line over the Eyes & the throat enclining to yellow. WhetherThis is a particular change of Plumage of our common black-bird in the fall, and probably No. 1306 is the same bird…its dress in the spring. No. 1307. I shall for the present call the brown Thrush, it is the only specimen I have meet with, but I have not unfrequently heard of white birds being seen amongst our black birds. In the collection belonging to the Mr. Carlson at Upsal in Sweden, is a bird very much like this except that it appears to have setaceous feathers at the base of its bill, which would character would places it with the Corvus, Crows, but in the specimen before us, there is no feathers of that kind" (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40).
Peale wrote, in "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806): "No. [blank] Hudsonian Thrush. This is the dress of our common black bird in the fall. No. [blank] the same species in the spring. No. [blank] is a variety very rarely meet with." (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)
Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described this species under the name "Rusty Grackle / Gracula ferruginea" in American Ornithology vol. 3 (Pl. 21), where "Peale's Museum, No. 5514" and Pennant's "Hudsonian Thrush" were cited (Wilson 1811: 41). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/51/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/42/mode/1up (plate)
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Rusty Blackbird
Current Scientific Name
Icteridae | Euphagus carolinus
