Jan., 1916 
PHILADELPHIA TO THE COAST IN EARLY DAYS 
7 
present city of Omaha) in the early autumn and here passed the winter. The 
summer of 1820 was spent in exploring the eastern base of the central Rockies, 
returning to the mouth of the Ohio by November. 
The Rocky Mountain party consisted of twenty persons with twenty rid- 
ing animals and eight pack horses, each man carrying his personal belongings. 
Peale was appointed by Major Long as assistant naturalist, his services to be 
collecting and preserving of specimens, draughting and delineating them, pre- 
serving skins, etc. Sixty skins were preserved, several thousand insects, 500 
species of plants, and many shells and rocks, while 122 sketches were made, 
all of which were depoited in Peale ’s Museum at Philadelphia. Say described 
some of the birds in the report of the expedition and others were described by 
Bonaparte in his continuation of Wilson’s Ornithology, Peale preparing the 
illustrations. Say was mainly interested in entomology and conehology and 
while he, as chief naturalist, published the new birds, it was probably mainly 
due to young Peale that such important ornithological results were obtained. 
Peale lived to a ripe old age and did not pass away until 1885, just before 
I became connected with the Philadelphia Academy. I occupied what had for- 
merly been his room and in it were stored his collection of butterflies and 
many relics of the U. S. Exploring Expedition (1838-42) which he had accom- 
panied on its voyage around the world. During this voyage, by the way, he 
made some collections in California. Being on board the Peacock which was 
wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia, May 18, 1840, he was forced to journey 
overland to San Francisco to join another vessel, the Vincennes. 
During the interim of fifteen years following the return of Long’s expedi- 
tion in 1820 some thirty west coast birds were made known to science, but only 
a very few were obtained from within the confines of the present United States. 
Swainson in 1827 described a number of species obtained in northern 
Mexico by Mr. Bullock, a collector and proprietor of a museum in England. 
Among these were the California Woodpecker, Black Phoebe, Bullock’s Ori- 
ole, Black-headed Grosbeak, Violet-green Swallow, and Dipper. 
Wagler described from the same country the Ladder-backed Woodpecker, 
and Brewer’s Blackbird. 
From California, Lesson, the Frenchman, described the Road-runner from 
a specimen obtained by Dr. Botta, a surgeon on a French sailing vessel, and 
deposited in the duke of Rivoli’s collection at Paris, which later came to Phila- 
delphia. This bird is probably referred to by Hernandez long before, but the 
description is too vague for positive identification. 
The next transcontinental expedition which figures in ornithological an- 
nals was organized in 1834 by Capt. Wyeth who was interested in the Columbia 
River Fishing and Trading Company. John K. Townsend and Thomas Nuttall, 
the former of Philadelphia, the latter professor of natural history at Harvard 
University, joined the party for the purpose of making ornithological and 
botanical researches in the far west. Townsend was but twenty-five years old 
but was already a competent authority on the birds of the east, while Nuttall 
was forty-eight and had just published the first volume of his classic “Man- 
ual”, though he was at this time, and probably always, more of a botanist than 
an ornithologist. 
The two naturalists took the usual route down the Ohio to St. Louis and 
thence across the state on foot to Independence where the caravan was en- 
camped. They had in all 70 men and 250 horses, and the order of march 
