96 The Life and Writings of 



obtained from fishermen. The writer of the &quot;Ichthyo- 

 logia Ohiensis&quot; had often depended on memory without 

 the check of careful notes, and in other cases had 

 described scientifically, from the stories of others than 

 Audubon, fishes which never existed. Eliminating these 

 forms, which are relatively few in number, there yet 

 remains a rather large list of fishes that well attests the 

 accuracy of Rafinesque s observations and his power of 

 specific diagnosis. 



The &quot; Ichthyologia Ohieusis&quot; will therefore stand as 

 the groundwork of the ichthyological literature of the 

 great valley of the Mississippi, throughout which very 

 many of the forms that it described now range. 



RAFINESQUE S WORK IN CONCHOLOGY. 



Almost equally with the work accomplished among 

 the fishes does Rafinesque s work in the molluscan 

 group rank as fundamental. In the extensive papers 

 published in the Journal des Physique et Chimie, etc., 

 of Paris, Rafinesque for the first time called atten 

 tion to the great wealth, in the western waters, of 

 animal life in this branch of zoology. Not only did 

 he discover many forms unknown to other naturalists, 

 but he described them well. He even saw the wide 



