6 CONTRIBUTIONS TO NORTH AMERICAN ICHTHYOLOGY 1. 



accounts were taken from living fishes, and hence were not to be readily 

 interpreted by workers in the closet with preserved specimens. 



In order to do justice to Rafinesque's work, it is necessary, in the 

 ■words of Girard (Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc. Phil. 1850, 1G7), " that one should 

 go to the very ground trodden by Rafinesque himself, his book in hand, 

 during all seasons of the year, aye, even for years in succession, to ena- 

 ble us to discriminate between what Rafinesque really observed and 

 what is imaginary ". 



Rafinesque's work has been well summed up by Professor Agassiz: 



"Nothing is more to be regretted for the progress of natural history 

 in this country than that Rafinesque did not put up somewhere a collec- 

 tion of all the genera and species he had established, with well-authen- 

 ticated labels, or that his contemporaries did not follow in his steps, 

 or at least preserve the tradition of his doings, instead of decrying hirn 

 and appealing to foreign authority against him. Tracing his course as 

 a naturalist during his residence in this country, it is plain that he 

 alarmed those with whom he had intercourse, by his innovations, and 

 that they j)referred. to lean upon the authority of the great natu- 

 ralists of the age, then residing in Europe, who, however, knew little 

 of the special natural history of this country, than to trust a some- 

 what hasty man who was living among them, and who had collected a 

 vast amount of information from all parts of the States, upon a variety 

 of objects then entirely new to science. From what I can learn of 

 Rafinesque, I am satisfied that he was a better man than he appeared. 

 His misfortune was his prurient desire for novelties and his rashness in 

 publishing them, and yet both in Europe and America he has antici- 

 ]»ated most of his contemporaries in the discovery of new genera and 

 species in those departments of science which he has cultivated most 

 perseveringly, and it is but justice to restore them to him, whenever it 

 can be done". (Am. Jouru. Sc. Arts, 1854, p. 354.) 



In regard to the descriptions of fishes made by Rafinesque from 

 "drawings by Mr. Audubon", 1 am informed by Dr. Kirtland, on the 

 excellent authority of Dr. Bachman, that several of the monsters de- 

 scribed by Rafinesque (such as Aplocentrns, Pogostoma, Eurystomus, etc.) 

 were drawn by Audubon with a view to a practical joke on the too 

 credulous ichthyologist. That being the case, it is but justice to Rafin- 

 esque's memory to let those names dro^) from our systematic lists without 

 prejudice to him. 



