20 ICHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS 



him," set sail for Sicily. He reached that beautiful 

 island of the Mediterranean in the following May. 



For the next ten years he resided in Sicily, and, 

 though these years were characterized by scientific 

 work accomplished under difficulties and under pres- 

 sure of business interests which would have made 

 any other man wealthy, they brought to Rafinesque 

 little save disappointment. This period of his life 

 was also marked by some of the harshest experiences 

 which come to men, and these seem to have had 

 great weight in determining the course of the mental 

 life of Rafinesque. It will be sufficient to pass over 

 this period with the barest mention of the more im- 

 portant episodes. Among these was the mesalliance 

 of Rafinesque with one Josephine Vaccaro, an adven- 

 turess, to whom he considered himself legally 

 married, though no ritual, either civic or ecclesiastic, 

 was ever celebrated. There resulted from this union 

 two children, — a boy who died in 1815, at the age of 

 one year, and a daughter who became a ballet dancer 

 and singer in Palermo. Harassed by business re- 

 verses, and the mercantile treachery of the Sicilians 

 with whom he had commercial relations, Rafinesque 

 finally determined again to visit America and to try 

 anew the fortunes of the New World. He left his 

 wife in charge of some of his property, and set sail 

 with the balance of his possessions in the summer of 

 18 1 5. His experiences on this memorable voyage 

 read like a romance, ending in shipwreck, at the east- 

 ern end of Long Island Sound, on Fisher's Island, 

 involving the total loss of all his years of toil, both 

 scientific and mercantile. At home, too, fortune 

 proved fickle ; his wife ' * suddenly married Giovanni 

 Pizzalour, a comedian," and dissipated the remainder 



