Wilson's Warbler (mounted taxidermy)

Object Status:

Unlocated

Primary Source Reference:

Charles Willson Peale, Lecture on Natural History 36. (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 36th Lecture (ca. 1799): "No. 1803. Green Warbler. Top of the head black; a line of bright yellow crosses the base of the upper mandible and passes over the Eyes to the hind head. all the upper breast olive green, throat yellow; breast and under parts greenish yellow. This beautiful bird is not larger than a wren, but more of a slender form. It is a rare bird and I believe a non-descript. It was taken in the vicinity of Philadelphia." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)

According to Franklin L. Burns, 1932, "Charles W. and Titian Ramsay Peale and the Ornithological Section of the Old Philadelphia Museum", Wilson Bulletin 44: 23–35, Peale wrote in (a now unlocated page of) "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805-1806): "No. 1703 [sic], with a black cap, a non descript, very small." This is confirmed in a partially illegible draft copy of the essay, which reads: "1803 […] a black cap, a nondescript very […]." (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)

Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described this species under the name "Green Black-capt Flycatcher / Muscicapa pusilla" in American Ornithology vol. 3 (Pl. 26), where "Peale's Museum, No. 7785" was cited (Wilson 1811: 103). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/123/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/108/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): 139, contended that MCZ "67868" (sic, =67869), a data-deficient specimen from the Boston Museum collection (shown here), was the "Probable type" of Wilson's Muscicapa pusilla. Faxon's claim may be true, but the pose is not identical, and Peale had this species in his collection by 1799, with little room (or interest) to display duplicates. / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6339801#page/189/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 it was probably fewer than 50 skins, 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 duplicate of Wilson's Warbler is listed. To the editor's (MRH) knowledge, there is no evidence that Wilson deposited a Wilson's Warbler specimen at Peale's Museum. Despite this uncertainty, the MCZ online database lists MCZ 67869 as the "Holotype of Muscicapa pusilla" and the specimen was included in a recently funded grant proposal aimed at "Preserving the genomes of the type specimens in the MCZ (CSBR)" (National Science Foundation, NSF Collections in Support of Biological Research: Award #1946857). / https://mczbase.mcz.harvard.edu/guid/MCZ:Orn:67869

Specimen Type:

Dead/preserved

Current Common Name:

Wilson's Warbler

Current Scientific Name

Parulidae | Cardellina pusilla

Repository:

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ 67869)