[Nhcoll-l] What are the oldest bird collections in the USA, particularly in the state of Pennsylvania?

[John E Simmons]

Jorge,

As Andy said, the answer to this question depends on whether you mean the
oldest individual specimens, or the oldest collections, or whether you mean
the first bird specimens collected in what is now the US but might be in
other museums. Just one example—by 1828 there were birds from North America
in the Museo di Storia Naturale (Florence).



There are many specimens of birds from what is now the United States in
European museums, and records of specimens that are no longer extant. The
catalog of the Tradescant Museum in London  for example records “A black
bird with red shoulders and pinions, from Virginia.” There is no date of
collection, but the catalog (*Musaeum Tradescantium*) was published in 1656.



Early bird collectors working in what is now the US included John Bartram
(1699-1777), who collected in Pennsylvania and Alexander Wilson
(1766-1813). See:



Halley, Matthew R. 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. *Proceedings of
the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia* 167(1):233-240



Prince et al. 2003. Stuffing Birds, Pressing Plants, Shaping Knowledge:
Natural History in North America, 1730-1860. *Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society*, new series, 93(4):1-113).



The Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806) returned with many bird
specimens, most (or all?) of which were sent to the went to Peale Museum in
Philadelphia, where they were exhibited. When the Peale Museum later
closed, the specimens were purchased by P.T. Barnum for his museum in New
York, and most were destroyed in the two disastrous fires that wiped out
the Barnum museum.



Burns emphasized the collecting by Peale, who also exchanged specimens with
European museums, and exhibited a large collection by 1805 that included
most of the then-known birds of the Eastern us (Burns, F.L. 1932. Charles
W. and Titian R. Peale and the Ornithological Section of the Old
Philadelphia Museum. The Wilson Bulletin 44(1):23-35.).



Genoways and Ratcliffe reported in detail on the Stephen Long Expedition of
1819-20, which included Thomas Say and Titian Peale (who made bird
collections) (2008. Engineer Cantonment, Missouri Territory, 1819-1820:
America’s first biodiversity inventory. Great Plains Research 18:3-31).



If you are looking for the oldest bird specimens from the US that are in US
collections, I recommend starting with the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia,
https://ansp.org/research/systematics-evolution/ornithology/ornithology-collections/



One point about early bird collecting to keep in mind is that prior to
around 1820 birds were prepared as taxidermy mounts, not as study
specimens, and taxidermy mounts are much more difficult to maintain
long-term than study specimens.



—John

John E. Simmons
Writer and Museum Consultant
Museologica
*and*
Investigador Asociado, Departamento de Ornitologia
Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima


On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 9:28 AM Jorge A. Santiago-Blay <blayjorge at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello:
>
> What are the oldest bird collections in the USA, particularly in the state
> of Pennsylvania? More broadly, how could anyone know the answer to this
> question?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jorge
>
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