Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
Unknown
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale, Lecture on Natural History 19. (ca. 1799). Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40. / https://ansp.org/research/library/archives/0000-0099/coll0040/
Additional Source Text:
In an update to his 19th Lecture, Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) wrote: "No. 316. Three toed Woodpecker of Batavia [= Java, Indonesia]. I do not find it described." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)
Notes:
Rafinesque (1802, Bulletin des Sciences, par la Société Philomathique. III, No. 67) described Peale’s specimen and later declared it the type of Picoides (Dinopium) erythronotus (Rafinesque 1814). Although the name erythronotus was eventually declared a synonym of javanense, Rafinesque’s genus name Dinopium is still used, based on Peale’s specimen; see Charles W. Richmond, 1909, "A Reprint of the Ornithological Writings of C. S. Rafinesque. Part II", The Auk 26: 248-262. / https://www.jstor.org/stable/4070796 The editor (MRH) has been unable to confirm the source of Peale’s specimens from Java, Indonesia, but there is ample reason to suspect that he received them from Thomas Horsfield (1773-1859), the physician and naturalist. In 1799, Horsfield, who was born and raised in southeast Pennsylvania, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, took a medical post on the merchant ship China, which sailed to Java. He remained there until 1819, during which time he collected specimens on behalf of Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (1781-1826), governor of the Dutch East Indies. In January 1799, before he left for Java, Horsfield visited Peale’s Museum and purchased a ticket “for the year 1799 which intitles [sic] the Purchaser to the use of the Museum every day while the Sun is above the Horizon. Each Ticket [cost] two Dollars.” His signature (“Thos. Horsfield”) appears in a Peale Museum Subscription Book (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481). / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Horsfield
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Common Flameback
Current Scientific Name
Picidae | Dinopium javanense
