1854.] 239 



the members of the "Western Academy of Natural Sciences of Cincinnati," in 

 January, 1849, to review the subject, with an intention of settling this matter of 

 nomenclature. With that Society there could be no partialities, there could be 

 no reason for favoritism, any more than with the Reporter of the State, or the 

 other zoologists who had devoted so many years to the study of these interesting 

 molluscs. They went to the task with no other object than to " render strict 

 justice to every author." The result was published in a small work, "Catalogue 

 of the U?iios, Alasmodontas, and Anodontas of the Ohio river and its northern 

 tributaries, adopted by the Western Academy of Natural Sciences of Cincinnati, 

 January, 1849." There were admitted sixty-seven distinct species, of which three 

 'only are ascribed to Rafinesque, U.flavus, U.flexuosus and IT. nodulatus* 



If I had been singular in my inability to make out Rafinesque's species and to 

 recognise him as authority, I should not, perhaps, have ventured alone, but the 

 exception is on the other side. If we turn to the admirable work of the late Dr. 

 Binney, on the " Terrestrial Molluscs of the United States," and there is not a more 

 able and judicious writer on the subject, we find that he wholly discards Mr. Raf- 

 inesque as being worthy of any regard. He says that the papers of Rafinesque 

 " are not deemed worthy of any consideration," (p. 36,) and further on he says 

 that" his diseased state of mind was observed about 1818" (p. 44); and again 

 at p. 48, he says, as the genera and species proposed by Rafinesque " are con- 

 sidered to be destitute of authority and entirely unworthy of notice, no mention 

 of them will be made in the text." He was in the habit of naming and describing 

 species which he never saw, as mentioned by Major LeConte, and a very remark- 

 able case of this kind exists in his publication of his genus Tremesia, in the same 

 paper with the Naiades. He described it as a trivalve fresh water shell living on 

 the rocks, near the mouth of the Ohio, like the Patellcs. He described the animal 

 and shell, and figured them (p. 54). But it is not pretended that he ever saw 

 either, and I doubt if there be one zoologist in the United States who believes in 

 the existence of the thing at all. In the American Monthly Magazine, Rafinesque, 

 in a previous notice, describes it under the information of Mr. Audubon. He does 

 not himself pretend to have seen it. 



When I was in Paris, in 1832, Baron Ferussac told me that I was wrong in 

 admitting a single species of Rafinesque's if I had any doubt myself about them. 

 He was convinced himself that he could not identify with certainty a single spe- 

 cies. In the Magazine de Zoologie, p. 13, he says that u he had received from 

 him the same shells under different names, and others with the names evidently 

 not those which were given to them in his Monography. Therefore there results 

 inextricable difficulty for the determination of his species, to establish an exact 

 synonymy between him and others, who since have occupied themselves with 

 the mussels." It is true that the Baron subsequently made a catalogue in which 

 he gave precedence to many of Rafinesque's names; but it must be remembered, 

 that this was done under the impression that these were identified as the original 

 specimens described by him, and not, as now understood to be the case, new labels 

 to other specimens, some twelve or fourteen years afterwards. We have seen above 

 that Ferussac could make nothing of the labelled specimens sent to him by Ra- 

 finesque, " marked by his own hand," which marking Mr. Conrad assumes as 

 definite, while in reality I do not think them entitled to the least consideration. 



*Stronger evidence could not be presented of the futility of the efforts made 

 by naturalists to give Rafinesque what they could by careful examination. The 

 earlier concholgists thought they could make out four of his species, torsus 1 my- 

 iiloides, metanever and scalenius. Professors Short and Eaton gave him mytiloides 

 torulosas, metanever, torsus, triqueter and scalenius. Judge Tappan, with the best 

 disposition, gave him, metanever, verucosus and tuberadatus, but all with doubt. 

 In the list made by the western conchologists there is but one, IT. viridis, the de- 

 scription of which Judge Tappan says equally well applies to iris. In Dr. Kirt- 

 land's State Report, he accredits two to Rafinesque, metanever and mytiloides, and 

 the Western Academy of Natural Sciences give him only flavus, flexuosus and 

 nodulaius, not one of which is given to him by the other authorities above quoted. 

 Could anything, therefore, be more uncertain ? 



