Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
23 March 1821
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, 23 March 1821. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481.
Additional Source Text:
Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885) deposited "1 Sparrow" on 23 March 1821, after his return from the Long Expedition, as recorded in the Peale Museum Accessions Book (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481). Titian also made a colored drawing (shown here) of a male Lark Sparrow at "Belle Fontaine" on 23 June 1819 (American Philosophical Society Library Mss.B.P31.15d). This was presumably one of the "4 [drawings of] Sparrows [unfinished]" recorded the same day in the Accessions Book (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481).
Thomas Say (1787-1834), in Edwin James, 1823, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains..., vol. 1, p. 139 (Philadelphia), described "Fringilla grammaca" from a specimen deposited in Peale's Museum. He also briefly described their first encounter with the new species: "We have seen at Bellefontain, as well as at several other points on this river, a pretty species of sparrow, which is altogether new to us" / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/124314#page/157/mode/1up
Bonaparte (1825: 47, American Ornithology vol. 1), who cited "Peale's Museum, No. 6288" in his account of the "Lark Finch / Fringilla grammaca" (1825, Pl. 5), wrote: "For this very interesting new species, Ornithology is again indebted to Long's expedition, and particularly to Say, who gave it the name we have adopted, and informs us, in his notes, that many of these birds were shot in the month of June, at Bellefontaine, on the Missouri" (Bonaparte 1825: 47). / https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AFKPEJIASN54OC8L/pages/A4COYZPD… (text) / https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AFKPEJIASN54OC8L/pages/A2XS624I… (plate)
Notes:
Here, for simplicity, we state that Titian R. Peale (1799-1885) deposited the Long Expedition specimens at Peale's Museum. However, it should be noted that the specimens did not belong to Titian, and were not his to give away. Officially, they were the property of the United States government, and as such were formally deposited by Major Stephen Harriman Long (1784-1864), who led the government-sponsored expedition. The Peale Museum Accessions Book, pp. 112-113 (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481) contains an "Invoice of Zoological Specimens and Drawings prepared by Titian Peale, Assistant Naturalist for the Exploring Expedition, and deposited in the Philadelphia Museum by Majr. S. H. Long, Maj. U.S. Engr. pursuant to instructions of the Secretary of War." At the conclusion of the invoice, "Rubens Peale [1784-1865], manager" signed the following statement: "Received, Philadelphia Museum, March 23d. 1821. of Majr. S. H. Long, the several articles, specified in the above Invoice, as a deposit for safe keeping, preservation and Exhibition; and I hereby promise, as agent for the Institution to hold the said articles subject to the orders of the War Department, thru the said Maj. Long." (HSP, coll. 0481)
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Lark Sparrow
Current Scientific Name
Passerellidae | Chondestes grammacus
