ICHTHYOLOGIC WORK 29 



scribed from the fresh specimen ; he was a constant 

 visitor at the fish-markets of Palermo ; he had such 

 relations with the Sicilian fishermen that they brought 

 him all the rare and odd forms which fell in their 

 way. All, or nearly all, of the other earlier descrip- 

 tions were based upon alcoholic types, and their 

 diagnoses were made from shrunken and discolored 

 specimens ; add to this the fact that descriptive ter- 

 minology was yet in its infancy, and that exact 

 scientific processes of measurement and color schemes 

 were yet unknown, and the student will find a ready 

 solution of some of the more important discrepancies 

 between the work of Rafinesque and that of his 

 contemporaries. 



It must ever be accounted a most unfortunate cir- 

 cumstance that Rafinesque did not preserve, in some 

 manner, the types of his genera. Once the technical 

 description was completed, with a reference to some 

 common form, if one chanced to be known, the fish 

 was thrown away or in some other manner failed of 

 preservation, Rafinesque had no further use for it! 

 At the time of his Sicilian residence, he enjoyed the 

 companionship and advice of the celebrated English 

 naturalist, Swainson, then living in Sicily, who has 

 recorded this habit of carelessness, and who persist- 

 ently yet vainly urged upon Rafinesque the necessity 

 of preserving his types. It is to Swainson's account 

 of these days that all modern students are indebted 

 for exact information concerning the lax methods of 

 Rafinesque. 



In December, 1817, Rafinesque published his first 

 paper on American fishes. It appeared in The Ameri- 

 can Monthly Magazine and Critical Review^ vol. ii., pp. 

 120, 121, and was entitled " First Decade of new 



