296 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



it; in 1825 he set out for Washington in order to secure 

 his patent rights, but his journey and idea never brought 

 him any returns. On the contrary, the incident marked 

 the culmination of his troubles with the president of the 

 University and its governing board, whom he seems to 

 have constantly nettled by his independent ways and 

 roaming habits. Upon returning from Washington he 

 found that Dr. Holley, who, he said, "hated and de- 

 spised the natural sciences" and wished to drive him out 

 altogether, had broken into his rooms during his ab- 

 sence, and had "given one to the students, and thrown 

 all my effects, books and collections in a heap in the 

 other," besides depriving him of certain other privi- 

 leges. "I took lodgings," he continued, "in town and 

 carried there all my effects ; thus leaving the college with 

 curses on it and Holley ; who were both reached by them 

 soon after, since he died next year at sea of the yellow 

 fever, caught at New Orleans ; having been driven from 

 Lexington by public opinion ; and the College has been 

 burnt in 1828 with all its contents." 



After this unpleasant experience Rafinesque re- 

 turned to Philadelphia, where he spent the last and 

 saddest part of his checkered career. His insistent 

 ideas, which were undoubtedly the index of an unbal- 

 anced mind, increased, especially his mania for describ- 

 ing "new species" of animals and plants; this mania 

 perverted everything that he wrote, especially toward 

 the end of his life, and made him a thorn in the side of 

 every naturalist who tried to verify his work. A non- 

 conformist and a respecter of no authority but his own 

 is never popular, though a part of the antagonism which 

 Rafinesque aroused was due to the conservatism of his 

 age. He boldly advocated organic evolution when al- 

 most the whole world believed that species were fixed 



