Object Status:
Extant
Accession Date:
By 1825
Primary Source Reference:
Peale Museum Accessions Book, 23 March 1821. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481.
Additional Source Text:
Titian Ramsay Peale (1799-1885) deposited "3 species of Flycatchers" and "3 [unfinished drawings of] flycatchers" on 23 March 1821, after returning from the Long Expedition, which presumably included specimens of this species (Accessions Book, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481). Two of Titian's drawings (shown here) are extant at the American Philosophical Society Library (Mss.B.P.31.15d).
Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803–1857) described this species under the name "Say's Flycatcher / Muscicapa saya" continuation of American Ornithology vol. 1 (1825, Pl. 2). Bonaparte (1825: 20) cited "Peale's Museum, No. 6831" and wrote: "The specimen now before us is a male, shot by Mr. [Titian] Peale, on the seventeeth of July, near the Arkansaw river, about twenty miles from the Rocky Mountains." Titian's drawing (shown here) was engraved by Alexander Lawson (ca. 1772-1846) for Plate 3 of Bonaparte's work. / https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AFKPEJIASN54OC8L/pages/AKE7FDKV…
Notes:
The older of Titian's two drawings is a pencil sketch on laid paper with no watermark, evidently created in the field. The bird shares the page with a preliminary sketch of the "Arkansaw Siskin", now known as Lesser Goldfinch Spinus psaltria. An inked annotation at the bottom right reads "1st camp on the Arkansaw / July 17, 1820". The second (colored) drawing, which was engraved by Lawson for Bonaparte (1825), was also executed on laid paper (albeit of higher quality) and also featers the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher Tyrannus forficatus. Titian initiated and dated the colored drawing with pencil, in the bottom left ("TRP. 1820"). Here, for simplicity, we state that Titian R. Peale (1799-1885) deposited the Long Expedition specimens at Peale's Museum. However, it should be noted that the specimens did not belong to Titian, and were not his to give away. Officially, they were the property of the United States government, and as such were formally deposited by Major Stephen Harriman Long (1784-1864), who led the government-sponsored expedition. The Peale Museum Accessions Book, pp. 112-113 (Historical Society of Pennsylvania, coll. 0481) contains an "Invoice of Zoological Specimens and Drawings prepared by Titian Peale, Assistant Naturalist for the Exploring Expedition, and deposited in the Philadelphia Museum by Majr. S. H. Long, Maj. U.S. Engr. pursuant to instructions of the Secretary of War." At the conclusion of the invoice, "Rubens Peale [1784-1865], manager" signed the following statement: "Received, Philadelphia Museum, March 23d. 1821. of Majr. S. H. Long, the several articles, specified in the above Invoice, as a deposit for safe keeping, preservation and Exhibition; and I hereby promise, as agent for the Institution to hold the said articles subject to the orders of the War Department, thru the said Maj. Long." (HSP, coll. 0481)
Specimen Type:
Dead/preserved
Current Common Name:
Say's Phoebe
Current Scientific Name
Tyrannidae | Sayornis saya
