194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



rarely appealed to any man. Today even, in the face of the cheek which 

 specialization furnishes to scientific investigators, few men could withstand 

 this lavish display of new and unknown forms! They were on every hand, 

 in every glade and mead, in every brook and spring, the creeks, the rivers, 

 the very rocks, themselves. Like a schoolboy, Rafinesque searched and foimd, 

 studied, described, drew, sent abroad, the wonderful forms in which he almost 

 alone, now reveled." 



Rafinesque remained at Lexington eight years, teaching students and 

 collecting and studying the local fauna and flora during the college year, 

 but during the vacations going far afield in search of new and undescribed 

 plants, fishes and shells. That on more than one of these excursions he 

 came to the Ohio and crossed over into the Hoosier state, is quite 

 certain. The Falls of the Ohio was a favorite collecting ground, and that 

 place is the type locality for many of his new species of fishes. It is also the 

 tyi)e locality for seven new species of lightning which he described in per- 

 fectly proper binominal form! We may not, however, count this circum- 

 stance as a part of the century's progress in zoology in Indiana! The evi- 

 dence of progress lies, perhaps, in the failure of our later naturalists to discover 

 any additional new species in that field! 



In the fall of 1S2"), upon returning to Lexington from one of his long 

 colh'cting tri|)s, Rafinesque found that during his absence, his effects had been 

 removed from his room in the collegi' liuilding and stored in the garret, and 

 the room which he had formerly occupied turned over to another professor. 



This was an indignity which our sensitive naturalist could not endure, 

 and he at once left the college as he says "with curses both on it and the 

 president, which reached them both soon after, for the President died of yel- 

 low fever in New Orleans, and the college was burned with all its contents." 



Recently, while looking over a number of Rafinesqiie's original field note- 

 books, now in the library of the United States National JNIuseum, I found in 

 one of them a loose sheet evidently the last sheet of a letter which had been 

 addressed to Rafinesque by the librarian of Transylvania University, asking 

 the return of certain hooks. The situation had evidently become acute, as 

 evidenced by the closing words of tiie letter, which are in the nature of an 

 ultimatum, as follows: "I am directed to conimcncc such suit without delay 

 if the books are not returned to the library. 



Yours respectfully, 



H. Ghaha.m." 



On the back of this sheet are lead pencil drawings of three fishes, — Rafin- 

 esque's way of showing his contempt for the librarian's ultimatum. 



I cannot resist the temptation of recording here a most remarkable and 

 important fact regarding Rafinesque, which is not generally known. It is 

 no less than complete evidence that our eccentric naturalist had a very clear 

 comprehension of the essential principles of evolution as early as 1832, 

 Iwentv-six vears before Darwin. 



