Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
January 9, 1822
Primary Source Reference:
Poulson's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 9 Jan 1822
Additional Source Text:
On a list of specimens "mostly obtained from high up the Missouri by Titian Peale" during the Long Expedition. Also listed (as Castor fiber) in "A catalogue of the names of the animals, which we observed at Engineer Cantonment [near present-day Omaha, Nebraska], or at other indicated places, on our journey to that post." Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and '20: By Order of the Hon. J.C. Calhoun, Sec'y of War: Under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long, vol. 1 [Philadelphia, 1823], p. 369
Notes:
In his sixth natural history lecture (1799) Peale described the beaver and its habits at great length.
John R. Godman described the beaver in his American Natural History. Part I. Mastology, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1826-1828), 3: 21-56, likely based on the Museum specimen; the illustration (engraving by G. B. Ellis after a drawing by Alexander Rider) is a detail of the plate following p. 20.
Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885) was engaged as assistant naturalist on the Long Expedition (May 1819-Nov 1820). His services were "required in collecting specimens suitable to be preserved, in drafting and delineating them, in preserving the skins, &c. of animals, and in sketching the statifications of rocks, earths &c. as presented on the declivities of precipices." (Edwin James, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, p. 3)
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Peale's Common Name:
Beaver
Current Common Name:
North American beaver
Current Scientific Name
Castor canadensis
