Status of Carolina Parakeet Specimens Collected in 1856 on the Missouri River

Ross Silcock was coauthor of this article, which was originally intended for publication in the Nebraska Bird Review.

The colorful and iconic Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis) historically occurred in southeast Nebraska at habitats along the ever-changing Missouri River. There is, however, little information on its distribution or abundance (Sharpe et al. 2001), though it apparently was a non-migratory species that reached the northwestern edge of its range in the lower Missouri River valley in southeast Nebraska. Myron Swenk (1934) summarized the information available to him, with updated information published by McKinley (1965, 1978). Its status was also discussed based upon the records previously published (Ducey 1988, 2000), indicating that it was extirpated about 1875 from the Nebraska region.

A consideration of historic notations indicates that flocks of parakeets wandered throughout the wooded Missouri River valley, with the available records indicating they nested on McKissock Island (Swenk 1934). Parakeets apparently occurred on occasion at least as far west on the Platte River as the mouth of the Loup River (McKinley 1965). Thomas Say, the naturalist with a U.S. Government expedition of 1819-1820, and his assistant Titian Ramsey Peale spent the winter of 1819-1820 along the Missouri River at Engineer Cantonment, at the northern fringe of present-day northeast Douglas County. Carolina Parakeets were observed by Peale from early December through mid-February, despite temperatures reaching 22 below zero at times (Wilson and Bonaparte 1808).

History for this species indicates there were at one time 11 specimens collected 24-25 April 1856 at McKissock (Bald) Island by Ferdinand V. Hayden for the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), during the Stephen Long Expedition. This location is currently a part of the state of Nebraska but lies on the east side of the Missouri River in Atchison County, Missouri. The original 11 specimens were numbered USNM 4608-4618 (pers. comm. Christopher Milensky).

McKinley (1965) was able to locate only three extant Nebraska specimens. USNM 4614 resides in the Smithsonian Institution and its status as the only specimen there from Nebraska was confirmed in a letter from Bonnie Farmer (Bray et al. 1986). According to McKinley (1965), the only other extant Nebraska specimens are a female (USNM 4613) now in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia (re-numbered ANSP 35381) and a female (USNM 4609) sent to Henry Bryant at Harvard in 1856 (pers. comm. Christopher Milensky)

More recently, however, information provided by James Dean, ornithological collection manager at the Smithsonian Institution, in February 2010 indicated that three of the remaining specimens collected by Hayden were distributed as follows: NMNH (sic; apparently 4609) went to Harvard University (re-numbered MCZ 43215), NMNH 4610 was sent to “a French scientist” in the 1850s, and NMNH 4612 went to the University of Michigan (re-numbered UMMZ 20385). Thus there is some information on five of the 11 specimens originally collected on McKissock (Bald) Island; the others are unaccounted for (Christopher Milensky, pers. comm.). The available information may be summarized as follows:

4609 was sent to a Henry Bryant in 1856 and resides at Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, where it is re-numbered MCZ 43215. This is the oldest specimen among the 119 Carolina Parekeet specimens which are a part of this collection.

Bryant was born in Boston, and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1843. In 1847 he was forced to abandon medicine because of ill health and turned to natural history, especially ornithology. Bryant was a member of the Megatherium Club a group of young naturalists at the newly formed Smithsonian Institution in the early 1860s. He appears in a group photograph which included other famous men of bird collecting: Robert Kennicott, Henry Ulke, and William Stimpson.

4610 was sent to a French scientist in the 1850s. According to Christopher Milensky (pers. comm.), the "French scientist" was Jules Verreaux of the Paris Museum.

4612 was sent to the University of Michigan, where it is still present (UMMZ 20385).

4613 is at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (ANSP 35381).

The specimen label data with this specimen lists Bald Island, Missouri and Yellowstone River as locale, and state as Montana; this appears to be an obvious error. This incongruity has been conveyed via email to the curators of the collection in order to correct any errors.

4614 continues in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History.

This former resident parakeet of the Missouri River valley in Nebraska was vividly known by the specimens collected by naturalist Hayden, at a time when they flourished in suitable habitat along the river. Thankfully, due to written chronicles and specimen records, lore of the Carolina Parakeet can still be enjoyed and considered decades after its actual existence.

Literature cited:

Bray, T.E., B.K. Padelford, and W.R. Silcock (1986). The birds of Nebraska: a critically evaluated list. Bellevue, NE. Published by the authors.

Ducey, J.E. (1988). Nebraska birds, breeding status and distribution. Omaha, NE. Simmons-Boardman Books.

Ducey, J.E. (2000). Birds of the untamed west. Omaha, NE. Making History.

McKinley, D. (1965). The Carolina Parakeet in the upper Missouri and Mississippi River valleys. Auk 82: 215-226.

McKinley, D. (1978). The Carolina Parakeet in the West and additional references. Neb. Bird Review 46: 3-7.

Sharpe, R.S., Silcock, W.R., and J.G. Jorgensen (2001). Birds of Nebraska. Lincoln, NE. Univ. Nebraska Press.

Swenk, M.H. (1934). The interior Carolina Paroquet as a Nebraska bird. Neb. Bird Review 2: 55-59.

Wilson, A., and C.L. Bonaparte (1808). American ornithology; or, the natural history of the birds of the United States. Volume I. Philadelphia, PA. Porter and Coates.

Considering Avian Specimens for Cherry County, Nebraska

Cherry County is a land in itself. Spreading nearly 100 miles from west to east, and more than 60 miles from north to south, the Nebraska region is an expanse of habitats which have always been suitable for a myriad of wild birds.

The first bird notes for this particular region of the central sandhills were gathered in 1857 by F.V. Hayden, naturalist for the Warren Expedition. This military party traversed the extreme southwest section when going along the Middle Loup River, then north and west to the Niobrara River.

Though there are several indications of specimens having been collected and sent to the Smithsonian, there are now very few extant skins. The report by Baird et al. issued in 1860, listed several, but in a comparison of the details given to modern records, only two specimens seem to still exist.

¶ Sandhill Crane: August 9, 1857; collected by Hayden: catalog no. 8914; USNM A8914, with no date information, for Nebraska; site designated to match locality on this date for the expedition

¶ Marsh Wren: long-billed marsh wren; August 12 date, with no year designated; Warren expedition; year designated to 1857; UMMZ 20492; female collected by Hayden: catalog no. 8838

The particulars for these and related observation records were determined by reviewing copies of the original journals of the Hayden, J. Hudson Snowden and then using the dim, yet legible maps available in microfile copies, as drawn by the corps of topographic engineers along on the expedition which indicate their daily route.

It was about 25 years later, when the next specimens were collected within the county, which was officially designated in 1883. Mr. Carpenter was at Fort Niobrara, along the river of the same name, which had been established in spring of 1880. It was northeast of Valentine, a nearby frontier town, with its origins in the same early years in northwest Nebraska.

During this era, D.H. Talbot collected a Peregrine Falcon (SUI 17519) and Barn Swallow (SUI 17695), in the area in September, 1884, and these two skins are stored in the collection of the University of Iowa Museum of Natural History.

With these tidbits of details, an effort was made to determine what other specimen records are available for this largest county in Nebraska.

Specimen Record Review

The primary resource used to locate applicable records was the Ornithological Information System [insert link]. Data queries provided combined details from different collections for the region of interest. For this endeavor, there were three queries done. Two were done for the available collections to limit the record retrieval to something which the "system" could handle and not result in a timeout. Though the United States National Museum was included in one of the queries, no records were returned, so an individual data request was submitted where the criteria was changed to specifically get records for Cherry county, rather than the other two requests for a match like Cherry County. A custom query was defined to provide results in a useful dataset.

The results were saved as delimited text files which were then combined into a single database table. Information was then further manipulated to ensure consistent species name, a designated locality for comparative purposes, conversion of the month - day - year details to a date format field, indication of year collected where a particular date was given but the year needed to be clarified, and other edits needed to designates some standard details to details from disparate sources of information.

There were a few more than 1400 records. Collections represented include the American Museum of Natural History, Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, Field Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute, University of Nebraska State Museum, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Royal Ontario Museum and Charles R. Conner Museum, Washington State University. These essential collections have a larger number of specimens, with additional places having fewer bird skins.

Pertinent details derived from these collections, include:

¶ Nine records with no date information

¶ Oldest record from 1888 with most recent from 2004, with 1374 records having a particular date of occurrence

¶ Men who collected the specimens include Fred Dille, George Hudson, W.E. Beed, N.L. Ford, H. Harris, J.S. Hunter, Isador S. Trostler, J.R. Alcorn, C.D. Bunker, W.M. Good, Harold J. Leraas, D. Liesveld, H. Nelson, Robert W. Dickerman, D. Teachnor, J.E. Wallace, A. Whitaker and L.L. Short, Jr. to mention some of those whom collected a larger number of specimens.

¶ More than 160 distinct species represented, including several notations for hybrids between buntings, grosbeaks, orioles and prairie grouse.

¶ Specimens represented from more than forty localities, with the Valentine lake district and sites along the Niobrara River prominent.

¶ In several cases, multiple birds of a single species were collected on the same date at one locality

¶ Archaic nomenclature which requires converting the given scientific name to a modern equivalent

¶ The greater number of records for a particular year are:

1965 - 155

1964 - 152

1923 - 146

1925 - 114

1922 - 83

1933 - 77

1926 - 71

There are also 48 records from 1902, when a group from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln went afield to the Valentine Lake District, taking the railroad to Valentine, and then a wagon-ride southward. The Fort Niobrara - Niobrara Game Preserve - Fort Niobrara NWR - has a fine set of species records indicated by specifics of the collection details.

It should be noted that there may be additional records among the records for the collections considered. Perhaps they may have not yet been entered into an electronic database, or if county or state was not designated, or for a variety of other applicable reasons, may not have been included in the query results.

Deficient Data

A review of the records shows some of the obvious conditions for the specimen records, and are given in specific detail to show how problematic it is to get particular records. The prominent difficulties are variances in how data is entered, lack of consistency across multiple datasets, no comparative evaluation, typographic errors, variability in how data details are entered, converting date details as an early 1900 date is converted to a post-2000 date, matching archaic names to modern equivalents, etc.

Readily obvious details needing consideration, include:

¶ FMNH 400973 - species identification given as "x"; if there is a specimen in a collection, perhaps a more precise identity could be determined

¶ ROM 57485, 57485, 57491: Zonotrichia melodia juddi which is an archaic scientific name for the Song Sparrow

¶ ROM 57566, 57568 for the Zonotrichia lincolnii lincolnii for April 1929 as collected by F.M. Dille; conforms to Lincoln's Sparrow

¶ KU 34083 - Tringa semipalmata inornatus [= Semipalmated Sandpiper] collected July 1857 by H.B. Tordoff<

¶ UMMZ 64009-11 - Steganopus tricolor [=Phalaropus tricolor] - collected in May 1926

¶ KU 14361, 14362; Spinus tristis = Carduelis tristis

¶ Multiple KU specimens: W.M. Good collected multiple specimens of Red-winged Blackbird in Jun 1949 in the vicinity of Merriman. The records list localities about "Merrimaw" which is an obvious error.

¶ UNSM 15300: Dorey Lake, there is no known locality with this name based on a review of more than 3000 place names dating back to the mid-1800s for the sand hills region

¶ CUMV 25669, CUMV 25670: "Hockberry Lake, 22 miles South-Southwest Valentine" is Hackberry Lake, Valentine NWR

¶ UNSM 11158: precise locality is given as "Mullen," which is in Hooker County

¶ KU 74178: precise locality given as "Niobrena Reservation" which is a proper locality

¶ KU 74433: precise locality given as "Niobrana Reservation" which is an obvious error in data entry

¶ KU 74596: precise locality given as " Niab. Res." which is an obvious error for this 1922 record

¶ USNM 481785: precise locality given as " Niobraba Game Refuge" which is misspelled

¶ WFVZ 110498: precise locality given as "Vallentine, Niapara Reservation" which is a dramatically mangled version of a site name. This record is from May, 1903 for a specimen of American Kestrel collected by Fred Dille, a.k.a."Dille, F M" or "Dille, F.M." or "Dille, S M" as given for ROM 57186, as well as "F. M. Dille". This is the same person - collected at the Niobrara Game Preserve, which became Fort Niobrara NWR - presented in several ways, once again indicating an inconsistent matter of data entry.

¶ For "AMNH Skin-835265" the collector was not "N. E. Beed" as designated but rather W.E. Beed.

¶ KU 34130: precise locality designated as "11 mi. S Gordon" which would be in Sheridan County, not Cherry County

¶ USNM 528034: precise locality given as "Rushville, 10.5 mi S, Niobrara River" which would also be in Sheridan County

¶ There is regularly a lack of consistency in how the precise locality has been entered into the database record.

¶ "Hackberry Lake", as well as "Hackberry Lake, Cherry Co, Nebraska" is the same place as "Hackberry Lake, Valentine N.W.R." which is the same place as "Hackberry Lake, Velentine N.W.R." and the same place as "Hackbury Lake, Valentine NWR" as add in " Valentine N.W.R., Hackberry Lake." These sites are represented in CRCM, KU and USNM collection specimens.

¶ Hackberry Lake is at the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge, and designated for consistency purposes as Hackberry Lake, Valentine NWR.

¶ There is also "Valentine, 20 mi WSW, Anderson Bridge, Niobrara River", and "Niobrara River, 20 mi WNW Valentine, Anderson Bridge" along with "Anderson Bridge, 20 mi WSW, Niobrara River" which refer to the same locality, now in the vicinity of Anderson Bridge WMA, along the Niobrara River south of Kilgore.

¶ Searching for records from "Merriman, 14.5 mi SW, Niobrara River" may not match records designated as " Merriman, Niobrara River, 14 1/2 mi SW".

¶ Evaluating the county designation, this is given in several ways, including "Cherry", "Cherry Co", "Cherry Co." and "Cherry County" which readily illustrates the need to do a "loose match" when requesting records for a particular county location.

¶ The locality of " NEBRASKA: Cherry County; Merriman, 9 mi N, 15 mi W" or "NEBRASKA: Cherry County; Merrit Reservoir" and " NEBRASKA: Cherry County; Valentine" have too much detail and could be presented better if the state and county details were kept to a separate data field for this UWBM data.

A trivial matter is that for people designated as the collector, most entries are in lower-case text, while others are in all caps; periods are often missing for name initials. For USNM specimens, there is " Short, L. L. JR." and why is the junior attribution in caps whereas the rest of the proper name is properly in lower-case.

This set of bird specimen records for a particular region is just one of the multitude which can be derived from the array specimen records which are available from a variety of museums. There is a vast value to this information which might be better appreciated if the prominent problems with the data details are considered and the condition of the data is improved.

Having consistent details for the multiple datasets available is essential to provide an accurate comparison of specimen records. Once this can be achieved, it will improve information quality and allow a better understanding of various details of where and when birds occurred decades ago in the historic record of the continental avifauna. The time when there is consistency in data and lack of entry errors is uncertain, but hopefully may occur at some future time to the benefit of others interested in the historic ornithology of wild birds.

Cherry County and its many places during a span of more than a century were attractive to bird collectors and present a microcosm of the condition of historic records. For this tract in Nebraska - and certainly for other places in North America - its significance could only be best understood by using data from available sources and going through an extensive edit process to provide the most accurate and useful details for the specimen records.

Add pertinent details for many of the recorded specimens would provide a wholly different representation and make the information have much more value.

Northern America Specimens Prevalent in Strickland Collection

A catalogue of the specimens in the historic collection of European Hugh Edwin Strickland includes numerous specimens from localities in northern America.

Strickland, a "Fellow of the Royal, Linnean, Geological and Royal Geographical Societies" collected "about a third" of the specimens, while also obtaining bird specimens from a number of prominent collectors on the continent. A thorough list is given, which includes a number of notable men. The tally included the number of skins which they provided, as based upon the overall collection, not just those from northern America.

Sir W. Jardine, of Jardine Hall — a prominent author on birds during this era — was the father-in-law to H.E. Strickland,

The catalogue — A Catalogue of the Collection of Birds Formed by the Late Hugh Edwin Strickland, M.A. — prepared by Osbert Salvin, and published in 1882, listed 6006 skin records, including those from the following, pertinent sources:

• Captain Askew, in the Merchant Service - 339
• J.J. Audubon, "Author of the 'Birds of North America' and other works - 4 skin records
• S.F. Baird, "Professor, formerly of Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, now Secretary to the Smithsonian Institution, Washington" - 66 skn records
• Senor Jose Constancia, Antigua, Guatemala - 212 skin records; there are more than 160 records from the Senor for the area of interest; the records entered convey a notation of a species for a place by a particular site, though the catalogue record may be for more than one specimen
• Galeotti, a traveller in Mexico, where "he made large botanical collections" but obviously also acquired bird specimens which were sent to Europe -23 records
• P.H. Gosse, author of the preeminent work, "Birds of Jamaica" - 39 records, of which 30 where from northern America
• J. Gould, a prominent writer about birds during this era of history - 54 records of which 11 were from Jamaica
• T.G. Mann, a collector of birds traveling about Mexico; the given number of skins in the Salvin catalogue was 33 skins, but once pertinent records were compiled, there were 37 records
• Nathaniel Constantine Strickland, a cousin of H.E. Strickland, and brother of Arthur Strickland (also a contributor); the Stricklands were the source of more than 55 skins for the area being considered

One source of skins was Wosnessenski (not listed in the origins list of names), at N.W. America or Sitka or Kodiak Island, and who seemed to have sold some skins to J.F. Brandt, a German dealer.

Some specimens were bought from skin dealers, including Havell in London, S. Stevens in London, Thomas in London, and others.

Also worth noting are that specimens were acquired from Charles Darwin, naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle, and author of "Origin of Species"; one specimen in the catalogue was from the Galapagos Islands; E. Blyth at Bengal; B.H. Hodgson, formerly of Nepal; T.C. Jerdon who was the author of 'The Birds of India'; Captain W.J.E. Boys collecting in northern India; and, other collectors lessor of better known.

Most of the specimens were obtained between 1838 and 1953, and the date when they became part of the catalogue is given with each item. Often this date is the only temporal indicator for a specimen record, as the actual date when a specimen was collected is not given for the majority.

The avid collector increased his collection in 1838 by purchasing about 1200 specimens from his cousin Nathaniel Constantine Strickland.

The oldest specimen is dated 1824, and the most recent had a date of 1856, though that had to be a typographical error, since in September, 1853, Strickland died after being involved in an accident involving a railway train.

In preparing the catalogue, Salvin, the collection curator at the University of Cambridge, included name synonyms, which provide an interesting depiction of avian taxonomy when the catalogue was published.

Species Denoted

An example of an entry, is:

"382. Troglodytes hyemalis.
Troglodytes hyemalis, Vieill. N. Dict. d'Hist. N. xxxiv. p. 514; Troglodytes parvulus var. hyemalis, Baird, Brew. & Ridgw. N. Am. B. i. p. 155.
a N. America (J.G. Kinberg) 1845."

This record would be attributed to the Winter Wren, in N. America, and given a designated date of 1845, based on the chronology of the specimen, which in this case which was added to Strickland's collection in 1845, with J.G. Kinberg the source of the skin. The locality entered was N. America, which would apply generally to Canada or the United States.

More than 500 records were noted to occur in the northern America region. Records occurred from Panama Bay, Guatemala, Jamaica, the West Indies, North America, Illinois, California, Canada, N.W. America and from Sitka and Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Among the records with the most information on date of occurrence were about 35 from Carlisle, Pennsylvania obtained from S.F. Baird, which have the specific date when collected. In comparing the Strickland skins to the records previously published by Baird, there was only one example of a duplicate record, where the same species had been noted for the same date.

• Guatemala - 167 items
• United States of America/Canada - 109
• United States of America - 108
• Mexico - 61
• Jamaica - 53
• Canada - 20
• West Indies - 1
• St. Vincent and the Grenadines - 1
• Panama - 1
• Bahama Islands - 1

About 355 different species are represented for these countries or regions.

There are several skins in the collection for species such as the Orchard Oriole (7 skins), and five each of the Eastern Bluebird, Northern Flicker, Yellow Warbler, and Belted Kingfisher. Those represented by four specimens are Acorn Woodpecker, American Kestrel, Baltimore Oriole, Blue-winged Teal, Cedar Waxwing, Great Crested Flycatcher, Indigo Bunting, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. About 90 species have two or three skins. For about 240 species, there is only a single specimen.

There are no extinct species such as the Carolina Parakeet or Passenger Pigeon in the collection.

Though most of the species records given in this catalogue lack details to provide - preferably - a more precise date and location where they were collected, the information does none the indicate that numerous species for northern America occur in European collections which also need to be evaluated to get a comprehensive perspective on bird occurrence and distribution.

This publication is available online in its entirety at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.