238 [December, 



has but six given to him, viz: mytiloides, torulosus, metanever, torsus, iriqueler and 

 scalenius, the first, fourth and sixth of which Mr. Conrad now rejects.* 



I went to the task of examination with the sincerest desire of making out as 

 many as possible of Rafinesque's species ; and having his original work before me, 

 went over it carefully four different times, but with nearly the same result as my 

 predecessors. I gave it up in despair, and lost my labor ; and I think I shall 

 show further on, that Mr. Conrad himself affords the test evidence of the utter 

 impossibility of satisfactorily fixing Mr. Rafinesque's species. It is now thirty- 

 four years since he published his memoirs, and for nineteen years Mr. Conrad 

 has had the advantage of having shells labelled by, he says, Mr. Rafinesque him- 

 self, f A single species, the TJnio triangularis Raf. of Mr. Conrad's Synopsis of 1834, 

 with its synonyms, will convince any unprejudiced person of the impossibility of 

 the attempt made to establish Mr. Ra6nesque's species. J 



Dr. Griffith, Mr. Hyde and Mr. Peale have often told me that Mr. Say would 

 not listen for a moment to such an idea as giving any regard to his species, and 

 the works of Mr. Say fully justify this fact by the total absence of any re- 

 cognition of his authority for a single species, until some fourteen years after Mr. 

 Rafinesque's publication, he was induced to make his "Synonymy of the Western, 

 North American species of the genera Unio and Alasmodonta," recognising 

 many of the species of Rafinesque, and denying to me a single one. 



The feeling of the western conchologists was almost universally against the at- 

 tempt to introduce Rafinesque's names, and most of those who had studied these 

 shells, and written on them, or were writing on the subject, addressed me on the 

 occasion, in utter despair of making them out.|| 



The principal conchologists of Ohio, in April, 1836, agreed to form " a list to 

 be adopted by western conchologists," and after consulting together on the sub- 

 ject, a manuscript list was sent to me by Judge Tappan, containing 112 species of 

 Uniones, three only of which are given to Rafinesque. In August following, they 

 more maturely considered the subject, and agreed to the nomenclature of a list 

 in which a single species only is credited to him, and this with a mark of doubt. 

 In a letter to me from Prof. Kirtland when he undertook the Zoological portion 

 of the Ohio State Survey, he says, "I am particularly pleased with your arrange- 

 ment of the Naiades \ It is altogether preferable to anything of the kind that 

 has ever come before the scientific public, and will bear the test of the closest 

 scrutiny and the severest criticism." * * * "I was unwilling to complete my 

 report on our conchology until I could avail myself of the information which it 

 contained. I shall adopt your names and arrangement with hardly an alteration." 

 When this important State Report came out in 1838, in the whole list of nearly one 

 hundred species of the family JYa'iades, there were but two accredited to Rafines- 

 que, viz : metanever and mytiloides, the latter of which Mr. Conrad does not admit 

 as a species in his Synopsis, but now declares it to be a synonym to clavus Lam. 

 Notwithstanding the decisions of the ablest of the western zoologists, there was 

 still an attempt to substitute by "guessing," the names of Rafinesque. This induced 



*Mr. Poulson says in the preface of his translation, (Oct. 1831,) that but four 

 of Rafinesque's species were "known by his names, either in the works of Ameri- 

 can authors or in our collections." 



fThis was done some twelve years after the descriptions were published, and 

 at a time when I believe no one in any branch of science considered him as re- 

 liable authority. He had been, according to Dr. Binney, in a "diseased state of 

 mind " for thirteen years. I believe no one pretends to say that the original 

 Specimens described by Rafinesque are in existence 



JSee further on the numerous changes made by Mr. Conrad in the position of 

 this name and its abandonment at last. 



|| Dr. Kirtland, Mr. Buchanan, Dr. Ward. Dr. Hildreth, Judge Tappan, Mr. 

 Clark and some others. See Asa Gray's account of Rafinesque's Botanical Writ- 

 ings, (Sill. Journ., 1841,) where he says that " half his genera and species do not 

 exist at present," and that he described in "Natural History style, twelve new 

 species of thunder and lightning." 



\ Alluding to my Synopsis of the family Naiades, 1836, first edition. 



