Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. 5 



boy s home life in his mother s hands, and she seems 

 to have performed her duty well and conscientiously. 

 Rafinesque says* that in one of the numerous country 

 seats about Marseilles he first became conscious of his 

 existence, and there he received his first education. In 

 his own words: &quot;It was there among the flowers and 

 fruits that I began to enjoy life, and I became a Botanist. 

 Afterwards the first premium I received in a school was 

 a book on Animals, and I became a Zoologist and Natu 

 ralist.&quot; There are some who profess to see in this state 

 ment that Rafinesque had too high an appreciation of 

 his powers, since a young man, or, rather, a mere boy, such 

 as he then was, could have been neither a botanist nor a 

 zoologist. Perhaps, however, the just interpretation will 

 be the one Rafinesque himself intended, namely, that 

 these books determined his career and that he dated his 

 interest in scientific matters from that time. In 1793 

 his father died, a victim to the yellow -fever epidemic 

 of that year which made such waste of life in Philadel 

 phia, whither the merchant Rafinesque had gone to 

 escape the English cruisers. The recollection of this 

 fact afterward cost the son much trouble in a similar 

 epidemic which obtained in Philadelphia, after Constan 

 tine had himself become a resident of that city. 



* A Life of Travels and Researches in North America and South Europe, 

 etc., p. 6. 



