Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
By 12 October 1792
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale, letter to Thomas Hall of Moorfields, London, dated 12 October 1792; Selected Papers, 2, part 1: 42.
Additional Source Text:
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) sent a "Cock Blue bird" to Thomas Hall in London, in exchange for European specimens, on 12 October 1792 (Miller 1988: 43, Selected Papers, Vol. 2, part 1, Yale University Press).
Peale sent a "cock Blue Bird" in a shipment of six specimens to Christian Magus on 9 December 1792 (Miller 1988: 44). On 30 April 1797, Peale sent specimens of the "Blue bird [Catesby]. male & female" to Étienne Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) at the Paris Museum (Miller 1988: 198).
In his 36th Lecture, Peale wrote: "No. 1760. Blue-backed Red breast. is nearly of the size of the red-breast of Europe. The head and upper part of the body, tail, and wings, are a very beautiful blue, excepting the ends of the quill featehrs which are brown; the throat and breast are a dingy red; below white. Motacilla sialis Linn. Rouge-gorge blue de la Caroline Buff. pl. enl. 396. No. 1761. Female. is less brilliant the blue is mixed with black. They build their nests in hollow trees. Inhabit our orchards, and open fields, often seen on fences in search after flies & other small Insects. They visit us very early in the spring, and very generally have been seen in Maryland the whole-year. Their song is not much noticed." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)
Peale wrote, in "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806): "Buffon gives our Blue-backed Red Breast (M. sialis) as the representative of the Red breast of Europe. Our Blue bird is not so tame as the Red European Red breast – but they build their nests alike in holes – ours in hollow trees and the other in holes in walls & banks. They are nearly of the same size." (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)
Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) described this species under the name "Blue-bird / Sylvia sialis" in American Ornithology vol. 1 (Pl. 3), where "Peale's Museum No. 7188" was cited (Wilson 1808: 56). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175530#page/74/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175530#page/62/mode/1up (plate)
A mounted specimen of "Motacilla sialis (Blue bird)" was listed in "A Catalogue of Duplicate Specimens...", May 1822. [unpublished] American Philosophical Society Library (Mss.B.P31).
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 about the provenance of MCZ 67870 (shown here), a data-deficient specimen from the Boston Museum collection: "This specimen looks as if it had served as the pattern for Wilson's beautiful and oft-copied portrait of the Bluebird." Faxon's claim may be true, but the pose is not identical, and Peale had this species in his collection by 1792, 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. One duplicate of Eastern Bluebird is listed, and there is abundant evidence that Peale was sending duplicates of this attractive species to Europe in specimen exchanges. Whereas, to the editor's (MRH) knowledge, there is no evidence that Wilson deposited an Eastern Bluebird at Peale's Museum.
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Eastern Bluebird
Current Scientific Name
Turdidae | Sialia sialis
Repository:
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZ 67870)
