116 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



In 1836 we find him insisting, in his Flora Telluriana, that new 

 species and new genera are continually produced by deviation 

 from existing forms. Every variety is a deviation which becomes 

 a species as soon as it is fixed sufficiently to constantly reproduce 

 its kind. Many of the genera he suggested are fully recognized 

 to-day, though by his contemporaries regarded as worthless. But 

 from about 1819 a marked deterioration was noticed in his work, 

 which finally became tinged deeply with a sort of monomania. 

 Societies and journals were obliged to refuse his writings, which 

 poured forth in an ever-increasing flood. When he could obtain 

 means he printed for himself, in shabby and miserable form it is 

 true, but still he printed and projected journals and works which 

 died still-born or never saw the light. His madness seems to have 

 culminated in one of his publications where he describes twelve 

 new species of thunder and lightning. 



Of his personal appearance we have the following amusing 

 notes from Audubon's journal : 



''A long, loose coat of yellow nankeen, on which the inroads 

 of time were plainly visible, stained as it was with the juice of 

 many a plant, hung about him like a sack. A waistcoat of the 

 same, with enormous pockets and buttoned up to the chin, reached 

 below over a pair of tight pantaloons, the lower parts of which 

 were buttoned down to the ankles. The dignity he acquired 

 from the broad and prominent brow which ornamented his coun 

 tenance was somewhat diminished by the forlorn appearance of 

 his long beard and the mass of lank black hair which fell from 

 his shoulders." After relating the distance he had walked he 

 expressed his regret that his apparel should have suffered, but at 

 the same time he eagerly refused the offer of any clean clothes, 

 and it was with evident reluctance he accepted an invitation for 

 ablution. The surprise of the ladies of Audubon's family was 

 involuntarily manifested in the exchange of glances which spoke 

 volumes. Soon, however, their astonishment was converted into 



