Eastern Screech-Owl (mounted taxidermy)

Object Status:

Unlocated

Primary Source Reference:

Charles Willson Peale, letter to Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) dated 30 April 1797; Selected Papers, 2, part 1: 198.

Additional Source Text:

Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) traded specimens of this species with foreign naturalists as early as 30 April 1797, when he sent a "Screech Owl" to Étienne Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) at the Paris Museum (Miller 1988: 198, Selected Papers, Vol. 2, part 1, Yale University Press).

On 1 June 1797, he sent a "Screetch Owl. [Cock]" to Thomas Hall in London (Miller 1988: 207).

In his 14th Lecture (ca. 1799), Peale first described two red morph specimens (one male, one female): "No. 60. Red Owl. Tawney red on the back with fine lines of black. White spots on the wings. The underparts of the body white and the sides red, striped with black. Bill brown at the base, point white, claws white, the points brown. Long feathers like horns or Ears. Could they be keept [sic] indoors they might be extremely useful to catch mice; and much less troublesome than cats. They will perch on some high dark corner and remain still and silent watching for their prey, and if a mouse enters out of its hole at the most distant part of the rooms, they strike it in an instant. / No. 61. Female. Little Owl Catesby. Strix asio Linn. Scops de la Caroline Brisson." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)

Peale continued: "No. 63. This is only a variety of plumage that differs from the preceeding. Where the other was tawny red, this is grey. The feathers are more mottled with black with fine penciled bars of brown; in all other respects they are perfectly alike; size about 10 inches. / No. 62. Black Owl. This is rather smaller than the two [species] last described. It has feathers like horns. The general colour is a soot brown pensiled with fine black lines length ways, and crossed on the breast, where the ground [i.e., base color] is somewhat lighter than on the other parts of the body. It is a rare bird, and very probably a nondescript." (ANSP Archives, coll. 40)

In "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806), Peale mentioned "a small black-owl a rare species" among the horned owls, which was probably the same as the "Black Owl" of his lectures, and may have been a melanistic individual of this species (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481).

Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described a gray morph individual of this species under the name "Mottled Owl / Strix naevia" in American Ornithology vol. 3 (Pl. 19), where "Peale's Museum, No. 444" was cited (Wilson 1811: 17) cited. / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/23/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/8/mode/1up (plate). Wilson described a red morph individual under the name "Red Owl / Strix asio" in vol. 5 (1812, Pl. 42), where "Peale's Museum, No. 428" was cited (Wilson 1812: 83). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175520#page/99/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175520#page/98/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 67851, a data-deficient specimen from the Boston Museum collection (shown here), is "Perhaps the original Wilson's figure." Faxon's claim may be true, but Peale had this species in his collection by 1797 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 Eastern Screech-Owl are listed. To the editor's (MRH) knowledge, there is no evidence that Wilson deposited an Eastern Screech-Owl at Peale's Museum.

Specimen Type:

Dead/preserved

Current Common Name:

Eastern Screech-Owl

Current Scientific Name

Strigidae | Megascops asio

Repository:

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ 67851)