150 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



Rafinesque lias published quite an interesting autobiography, 

 entitled, A Life of Travels and Researches, which contains much 

 that is interesting, giving an t account of his travels and well de- 

 scribing the discomforts and pleasures of the botanical explorer. 

 The following extract from the introduction to his New Flora of 

 North America will convince all of our collectors that the writer 

 knows what he is talking about. 



"Musquitoes and fleas will often annoy you or suck your blood if you 

 stop or leave a hurried step. Gnats dance before the eyes, and often fall in 

 unless you shut them; insects creep on you and into your ears. Ants crawl 

 on you whenever you rest on the ground ; wasps will assail you like furies if 

 you touch their nests. But ticks, the worst of all, are unavoidable whenever 

 you go among bushes, and stick to you in crowds, filling your skin with 

 pimples and sores. Spiders, gallineps, horse-fles, and other obnoxious in- 

 sects, will otten beset you or sorely hurt you." 



It is needless to say that the other side of the picture is also 

 presented, and the pleasurable excitements of discovering u new 

 things" well drawn. 



It is difficult to enumerate the writings of Rafinesque, fur they 

 are so scattered throughout transient publications, that it is hard 

 to know when all are counted and just as hard to find all that are 

 known. In the Am. Jour. Sci., Vol. 40, No. 2, 1841, is an article 

 entitled. "Notice of the Botanical Writings of the late C. S. Iiafi- 

 nesque," written by Dr. Gray, and the acknowledgement might as 

 well be made here that to it we are indebted for most of the infor- 

 mation contained in this sketch. In the article referred to, Dr. 

 Gray makes mention of nearly thirty titles which relate to botany, 

 most of them however meaning not books but pamphlets. 



Something now as to Rafinesque's methods in establishing new 

 g'enera (which by the way he called genuses) and species. Those 

 which he established upon personal observation are entitled to the 

 most authority, but faulty partly on account of an ignorance oi 

 previous writings, but mostly because the slightest deviation in 

 leaves made species and any change in floral organs led to the es- 

 tablishment of genera. His writings showed an appreciation of 

 natural affinities and of the advantages of a natural classification, 

 but the boundaries of a species or genus lay in an unknown region. 

 He insisted that new species and genera are being constantly pro- 

 duced by the deviation of existing forms, which at length give rise 

 to new species, and finally to new genera. This view was certainly 

 in advance of his age and does great credit to his powers of obser- 

 vation. But he absurdly gave estimates as to the time in which 

 these changes were made, stating that from thirty to one hundred 

 years was the average time required for the production of a new 

 species, and five hundred to a thousand years the time required for 

 a new genus. Hence he thought that the business of establishing 

 new genera and species would be endless, but he set himself man- 

 fully to work in his Flora Telluriana to establish 1000 totally 

 new genera. 



