Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
By 1805
Primary Source Reference:
Charles Willson Peale, "A Walk through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805-1806). Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481.
Additional Source Text:
Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) wrote, in his 19th Lecture (ca. 1799): "305. Green Woodpecker, of Europe, where they have only two others, the black and the varigated. The Irides of 2 colours; the inner circle reddish, the outer white; the crown of the head crimson, spotted with brown black; sides of the head blackish; on the lower jaw a spot of red; the upper parts of the body are of an olive green, towards the rump greatly verging to yellow; quills duskey, spotted with white; the under parts greenish white, or very pale green; tail barred dusky and greenish; all exept the outer ones black at the end." (Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University Archives, coll. 40)
Peale continued: "Buffon says, This green woodpecker Bird is seen oftener on the ground than other woodpeckers, particularly near ant-hills, where we may be sure to find it, and even to catch it by the means of a noose. It inserts its long tongue into the narrow hole, through which the ants issue, and so soon as it feels the tip covered by these insects, it withdraws and swallows them. But when these little republicans are inactive and still, is torpid-cold, or the bird assaults their citadel, and, employing both feet and bill, soon makes a breach and at ease devours the and their crysalides. Picus viridis Linn. Pic Verd. Buff. pl. enl. 371. 879. Green Woodpecker Brit. Zool." On a subsequent page, evidently added in an update, Peale wrote: "No. 315. Female of the Green Woodpecker, Le Pic vert. Buff. Picus varius Linn." (ANSP Archives, coll. 40)
Peale wrote, in "A Walk Through the Philad[elphi]a Museum" (1805–1806): "Green Woodpecker (P. Viridis) inhabits Europe." (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481)
On 15 August 1806, a donation "29. Green Wood-pecker. M. F. [male, female]" from Thomas Hall (of London) was entered into the Peale Museum Accessions Book, p. 17 (HSP, coll. 0481).
A mounted specimen of "Picus viridis (Green Wr)" from France was listed in "A Catalogue of Duplicate Specimens...", May 1822. [unpublished] American Philosophical Society Library (Mss.B.P31).
Notes:
Thomas Hall (ca.1746-1813) was a natural history dealer and showman in London who, like Peale, assembled a collection of exotic taxidermy and natural oddities in his home, which he displayed to paying customers. Hall’s museum was known by the names “Curiosity House” and “Finsbury Museum”, and he distributed tokens advertising himself as “The first artist in Europe for preserving Birds, Beasts &c.” Today, many of these tokens are preserved in the British Museum. / https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG145361 Peale proposed a specimen exchange with Hall, in a letter dated 28 April 1792: “I therefore make you the proposal of sending you all the Variety of this Country, for an Equal number of European [species] … which shall be preserved in the best manner (of which I now feel myself fully equal to) and sent and that I may be prepared for such an exchange I am now using every means in my power to Collect and preserve the Birds of the present season … I have not time to give you any description of such as I suppose are peculiar to this part of America, and I find that every year I discover some kinds that I had not known before, and from what I have read, I find that those who have attempted the Natural History of this Country [were] generally deficent of inteligence [sic].” (Miller 1988: 31–32, Selected Papers, Vol. 2, part 1, Yale University Press). Peale announced in June 1792 that he was “busily employed in preserving the Birds of our Country [the United States] in order to furnish [himself] with such a number of duplicates as [would enable him] to make an extensive exchange” with Hall, and with institutions in Sweden and Holland (Miller 1988: 37). During his travels in London, Rubens Peale (1784-1865) wrote to his father on 1 June 1803: “I wish you to inform me in the next [letter] how you stand with Hall, recolleckting that I have had from him a considerable number of subjects in return from what I let him have.” (Miller 1988: 529) The final specimen deposit from Hall was recorded in the Peale Museum Accessions Book on 17 August 1806 (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481).
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
European Green Woodpecker
Current Scientific Name
Picidae | Picus viridis
