So7ne Early Philadelphia Botanists — Leonard. 33 



•search, 183(). Besides these Prof. Gray eiuniierates some 27 titles, 

 principally magazine articles and pamphlets. 



The writings of C. S. Rafinesque on Recent and Fossil Con- 

 -cholog}^ have been edited by W. G. Binney and G. W. Tyron, Jr., 

 8 vo. Phila., 18(U. During his last years Rafinesque was en- 

 gaged chiefly in exploring South New Jersey and the pine bar- 

 rens. 



That Rafinesque was an active worker in the field no one 

 will doubt from the above brief account of his travels. Many 

 amateur botanists will appreciate his daily trials as thus quaintly 

 portrayed in an introduction to his ''New Flora of North Amer- 

 icaf' — 



"Mosquitoes and fleas will often annoy you or suck your 

 blood if you stop or leave a hurried step. Gnats dance before the 

 eyes and often fall in unless you shut them; insects creep on you 

 and into your ears. Ants crawl on you whenever you rest on 

 the ground, wasps will assail you like furies if you touch their 

 nests. But ticks, the worst of all, are unavoidable whenever you 

 go among bushes, and stick to you in crowds, filling your skin 

 with pimples and sores. Spiders, gallineps, horse-flies and other 

 obnoxious insects, will often beset you, or sorely hurt you." 



Evidently Rafinesque had no taste for entomology! Yet he 

 knew the opposite side of this picture, for he well describes the 

 pleasant excitement of finding "new things." 



Rafinesque is sorely criticised and justly too, it would seem, 

 by Prof. Gray, for being too ambitious to establish new genera, 

 without regard to previous authorities, and having solely in view 

 the slighest deviation in leaves or floral organs. He insisted that 

 new species and genera are being constantly produced by the de- 

 viation of existing forms. This view was certainly in advance of 

 his age and does great credit to his powers of observation. But 

 he absurdly gave estimates as to the time in which these chang- 

 es were made, stating that from thirty to one hundred years was 

 the average time required for the production of a new species, and 

 five hundred to a thousand years the time required for a new 

 genus. 



Hence he thought that the business of establishing new 

 genera and species would be endless, and set himself manfully 

 to work in his "Flora Telluriana" to establish 1,000 totally new 

 genera. He had the pernicious habit of forming genera and 

 species upon very imperfect descriptions by unreliable observers of 



