Specimens   pg 1.  pg 2.

3. Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827)
Two Golden Pheasants (Chrysolophus pictus)
In the 1780’s French statesman and soldier the Marquis de Lafayette sent to future President George Washington some asses, a partridge, and seven Chinese golden pheasants from King Louis XVI’s aviary. Philadelphia artist and naturalist Charles Willson Peale, who opened a new museum in 1784 at Third and Lombard in Philadelphia, asked Washington to send him the bodies of any deceased birds that could be used for display. After receiving one pheasant in 1787, Peale wrote, “When you have the misfortune of loosing [sic] the Others… be pleased to order the Bowels to be taken out and some Pepper put into the Body, but no Salt which would spoil the Feathers.” Washington sent two more pheasants later that year. Peale preserved them with arsenical soap, a toxic mixture previously unknown in the United States. On display for many years in his museum, which moved to Philosophical Hall in 1794, the birds have returned for this exhibition.

4. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
Jefferson’s Ground Sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii)
Named in Jefferson’s honor, Megalonyx jeffersonii was a giant ground sloth that lived sometime during the Late Pleistocene period, about 20,000 to 10,000 years ago. Jefferson used the discovery of these bones in his dispute with the French philosophe Buffon, who believed that North American animals were degenerate and smaller than those in ???.

5.Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803–1857)
Two Common Guitarfish (Rhinobatos rhinobatos) (“Rhinobatus columnae”)
The red ribbon on this jar marks the fish within as scientifically and historically significant. The guitarfish is a type specimen, the “original” individual after which all others of the same species are named. Such “types” are prized by natural history institutions for their scientific value.

6. Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809)
and William Clark (1770–1838)
Arrowleaf Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata)
Dried plants and flowers are almost the only natural artifacts that remain from the government-sponsored Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803 to 1806. The notes on this sheet chronicle the history of the specimen, from its collection during the expedition, to name changes and botanists’ remarks, to its last “conservation” by a specialist who cares for museum artifacts.