Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
By 1811
Primary Source Reference:
Alexander Wilson, letter to Reubens Peale, dated 22 [November] 1810. American Philosophical Sociey Library, Peale-Sellers Family Collection, Mss.B.P31, Series 1, Box 3.
Additional Source Text:
Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) wrote a letter to "Mr. Rubens Peale / Museum" dated "Philadelphia, Thursday 22 [November] 1810", in which he wrote: "A. Wilson's Compts. To Mr. Peale with a specimen of … The Mississippi Kite hitherto undescribed … The Kite was a male and deserves to be well set up" (American Philosophical Society Library, Mss.B.P31; Hunter 1983: 376, Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson, Philadelphia: APS).
Wilson described this species under the name "Mississippi Kite / Falco misisippiensis" in American Ornithology vol. 3 (Pl. 25), where "Peale's Museum, No. 403" was cited (Wilson 1811: 80). / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/96/mode/1up (text) / https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/175516#page/97/mode/1up (plate)
Notes:
ANSP 2032 (shown here) was identified as the holotype of I. mississippiensis by Witmer Stone, 1899, "A study of the type specimens of birds in the collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia [ANSP], with a brief history of the collection", Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia 51: 11. / https://www.jstor.org/stable/4062478
A label attached to the specimen bears the following inscription in quotes, suggesting that it was copied verbatim from the wooden pedestal to which the bird was once attached: "Original sp. figured by Wilson, from Peale's Mus." The specimen ledger in which Stone catalogued the bird (ca. 1888) reads: "TYPE. Exch. with Peale's Museu. Specimen fig'd by Wilson" (ANSP Archives, coll. 54).
For more discussion about the ANSP types of Wilson and their provenance, see Matthew R. Halley, 2020, "Rediscovery of a lost type specimen of Alexander Wilson", Wilson Journal of Ornithology 132: 206-213. / https://doi.org/10.1676/1559-4491-132.1.206 / and Matthew R. Halley, 2022, "Rediscovery of the holotype of the American Goshawk, Accipiter gentilis atricapillus (Wilson, 1812), and a commentary about Alexander Wilson’s contributions to the Peale Museum", Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia 167: 233-240. / https://doi.org/10.1635/053.167.0114
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Mississippi Kite
Current Scientific Name
Accipitridae | Ictinia mississippiensis
Repository:
Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (ANSP 2032)
