Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
By 1799
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale, Lecture on Natural History 14. (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 a first-winter specimen of L. borealis in his 14th Lecture (ca. 1799), but mistook it for a female Loggerhead Shrike Lanius ludovicianus: "No. 93. Is the female of the preceeding, of a grey brown above; lighter underneath, with transverse brown lines; the black list beneath the eyes formed with cetaceous feathers is scarcely seen. The wings and tail are something darker than the back. It is only now and then that we meet with these birds near Philadelphia." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)
Peale wrote, in "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806): "… the female of the preceeding, of a grey brown above, lighter underneath with transverse brown lines, the black list beneath the eyes formed with cetaceous feathers is scarcely seen. The wings and tail are something darker than the back. It is only now and then that we meet with these birds near Philadelphia." (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)
Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described this species under the name "Great American Shrike, or Butcher-bird / Lanius excubitor?" in American Ornithology vol. 1 (Pl. 5), where "Peale's Museum No. 664" was cited (Wilson 1808: 74). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175530#page/94/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175530#page/95/mode/1up (plate)
A mounted male specimen of "Lanius excubitor (Great Shrike)" was listed in "A Catalogue of Duplicate Specimens...", May 1822. [unpublished] American Philosophical Society Library (Mss.B.P31).
Notes:
According to Wilson (1808, American Ornithology vol. 1), there were specimens of both L. ludovicianus and Northern Shrike (L. borealis) in the Philadelphia Museum, which Peale thought were the two sexes of one American species with a broad distribution “from Hudson’s Bay to Louisiana.” He suspected that this species was conspecific with the Great Grey Shrike (L. excubitor) of Eurasia. Wilson (1808) distinguished the two American species, correcting Peale’s error, but was unable to compare American specimens of “L. excubitor?” to specimens from Europe, which Peale apparently lacked in his collection.
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Northern Shrike
Current Scientific Name
Laniidae | Lanius borealis
