RAFINESQUE. 219 



for facts and details, and, as Professor Agassiz used to say, " the mem- 

 ory must not be kept too full, or it will spill over." 



Thus it came about that the name and work of Rafinesque fell into 

 unmerited neglect. His writings, scattered here and there in small 

 pamphlets, cheap editions published at his own expense, had been sold 

 as paper-rags, or used to kindle fires by those to whom they were sent, 

 and later authors could not find them. His " Ichthyologia Ohioensis," 

 once sold for a dollar, is now quoted at fifty dollars, and the present 

 writer has seen but two copies of it. In the absence of means to form 

 a just opinion of his work, it became the habit to pass him by with a 

 sneer, as the "inspired idiot" " whose fertile imagination has peopled 

 the waters of the Ohio." 



Until lately, only Professor Agassiz * has said a word in mitigation 

 of the harsh verdict passed on Rafinesque by his fellow-workers and 

 their immediate successors. Agassiz says, very justly : "I am satisfied 

 that Rafinesque was a better man than he appeared. His misfortune 

 was his prurient desire for novelties, and his rashness in publishing 

 them. . . . Tracing his course as a naturalist during his residence in 

 this country, it is plain that he alarmed those with whom he had in- 

 tercourse, by his innovations, and that they preferred to lean upon the 

 authority of the great naturalist of the age [Cuvier], who, however, 

 knew little of the special history of the country, rather than to trust 

 a somewhat hasty man who was living among them, and who had col- 

 lected a vast amount of information from all parts of the States upon 

 a variety of subjects then entirely new to science." f 



In a sketch of " A Neglected Naturalist," Professor Herbert E. 

 Copeland has said : " To many of our untiring naturalists, who sixty 

 years ago accepted the perils and privations. of the far West, to col- 

 lect and describe i^Taninials and plants, we have given the only reward 

 they sought, a grateful remembrance of their work. Audubon died 

 full of riches and honor, with the knowledge that his memory should 

 be cherished as long as birds should sing. Wilson is the ' father of 

 American ornithology,' and his mistakes and faults are forgotten in 

 our admiration of his great- achievements. Le Sueur is remembered as 

 the ' first to explore the ichthyology of the great American lakes.' 

 Laboring with these, and greatest of them all in respect to the extent 

 and range of his accomplishments, is one whose name has been nearly 

 forgotten, and who is oftenest mentioned in the field of his best labors 

 with pity or contempt." J 



It is doubtless true ; while, as Professor Agassiz has said, Rafi- 



* So early as 1844, Professor Agassiz wrote to Charles Lucien Bonaparte: "I think 

 that there is a justice due to Rafinesque. However poor his descriptions, he first recog- 

 nized the necessity of multiplying genera in ichthyology, and this at a time when the thing 

 was far more difficult than now." 



f Agassiz, "American Journal of Science and Arts," 1854, p. 354. 



+ " A -nerican Naturalist," 1876. 



