Long-eared Owl (mounted taxidermy)

Object Status:

Unlocated

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) wrote, in his 14th Lecture (ca. 1799): "No. 57. Horned Long-eared Owl. Body variegated with brown, russet colour and grey; brown and reddish feathers like horns; stiff feathers round the eyes; head reddish; tail above marked with deep grey, underneath equally marked; feet covered with down; underneath the wings, brown horizontal spots; the light feathers and the under parts of the body marked with lines length ways & crossed with 3 or more bands of dark brown. Strix otus Linnaeus. It is about 14 Inches long, which is the size mentioned by Pennant of an Owl of Hudson's Bay, which he calls Long Eared. The ear of this, is large and left uncovered, that it may be seen to advantage. No. 58. The colours of this [specimen] has more of the russet, but the marks correspond with the preceeding, therefore I suppose it to be a different sex." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)

Peale wrote, in "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806): "Here is a variety of long Eared Owls" [sic] (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)

Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described this species under the name "Long-eared Owl / Strix otus" in American Ornithology vol. 6 (Pl. 51), where "Peale's Museum, No. 434" was cited (Wilson 1812: 73). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175484#page/97/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175484#page/90/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): 135, speculated that MCZ 67850 (shown here), a data-deficient specimen from the Boston Museum collection, was "Very probably the specimen drawn by Wilson." Faxon's claim may be true, but Peale had this species in his collection by 1799 and had little room (or interest) to display duplicates. / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6339801#page/185/mode/1up Wilson (1810: viii, American Ornithology, vol. 2) also 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 duplicates of Long-eared Owl are listed. To the editor's (MRH) knowledge, there is no evidence that Wilson deposited a Long-eared Owl at Peale's Museum.

Specimen Type:

Dead/preserved

Current Common Name:

Long-eared Owl

Current Scientific Name

Strigidae | Asio otus

Repository:

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ 67850)