Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
May 21, 1789
Primary Source Reference:
Pennsylvania Packet (Philadelphia), 21 May 1789
Notes:
This bird was perhaps the first of at least four bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) that came to the Museum. Some were received alive and kept as pets, then displayed following taxidermy after they died (and in one case a skeleton was displayed). In 1792 Peale wrote of the bald eagle: "I have a fine one, which I have kept alive these four years; it is now five years old" -- that is, born about 1787 and acquired about 1788, and so possibly the specimen reported here). (Selected Papers, 2, part 1: 16) In his Autobiography, Peale noted: "that "He had a Bald Eagle, (The American gray Eagle becomes the Bald Eagle, at 5 years of age. He got this bird at one Year old) which he [had] taken when young and he had in a large wire cage on the top of the [Philosophical] Hall. . . . He had in Gold letters on his cage Feed me daily 100 years. however it did not live in captivity only 15 years." (Selected Papers, 5: 226) Two preserved specimens survive, both of which are pictured here. One is at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia (given by Mary Jane Peale in 1873), the other at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. Regarding the provenance of that specimen, Walter Faxon wrote: "I well remember the old Peale Museum label (since lost) which accompanied this bird after it came into the custody of the Boston Society of Natural History, with the inscription 'Presented by A[lexander] Wilson.' This Eagle was shot near Great Egg Harbour, N.J., in January, 1812, or earlier." ("Relics of Peale's Museum," Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zooology, vol. 59 [1915]: 135) Alexander Wilson described and illustrated the white-headed eagle (which he called Falco leucocephalus) in his American Ornithology; or The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, vol. 4 (Philadelphia, 1811), pp. 89-100 and plate 3, citing two specimens in Peale's Museum (No. 78 and No. 80). Wilson's plate, which bears a striking resemblance to the Harvard specimen, is also pictured here.
Specimen Type:
Live (presumably eventually taxidermied/preserved)
Peale's Common Name:
Bald eagle
Current Common Name:
Bald eagle
Current Scientific Name
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
