AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. 1 43 



AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. 



IT is now nearly seventy years since the first 

 student of our Western fishes crossed the Falls 

 of the Ohio and stood on Indiana soil. He came 

 on foot, with a note-book in one hand and a hickory 

 stick in the other, and his capacious pockets were 

 full of wild-flowers, shells, and toads. He wore 

 '' a long, loose coat of yellow nankeen, stained yel- 

 lower by the clay of the roads, and variegated by 

 the juices of plants." In short, in all respects of 

 dress, manners, and appearance, he would be de- 

 scribed by the modern name of *' tramp." Nev- 

 ertheless, no more remarkable figure has ever 

 appeared in the annals of Indiana or in the annals 

 of science. To me it has always possessed a pecu- 

 liar interest ; and so, for a few moments, I wish to 

 call up before you the figure of Rafinesque, with his 

 yellow nankeen coat, '* his sharp tanned face, and 

 his bundle of plants, under which a pedler would 

 groan," before it recedes into the shadows of 

 oblivion. 



Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was born in 

 Constantinople in the year 1784. His father was 

 a French merchant from Marseilles doing business 

 in Constantinople, and his mother was a German 

 girl, born in Greece, of the family name of Schmaltz. 

 Rafinesque himself, son of a Franco-Turkish father 



