292 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



fortunate for American zoology, a year later began to 

 publish the results. The fictitious species of fish, to the 

 number of ten, "communicated by Mr. Audubon," first 

 appeared as a series of articles in a short-lived and long 

 forgotten western magazine, 6 but in 1820 they were 

 gathered into a little volume 7 now considered so quaint 

 and rare that it has been reproduced in its entirety. In 

 this pioneer work on the ichthyology of the Ohio River 

 and the great Middle West, 111 kinds of American 

 fresh-water fishes are briefly described. Those ten "new 

 species," representing apparently a number of new 

 genera, "so like and yet so unlike to anything yet 

 known," long remained a stumbling block to American 

 zoologists; naturally they tended to discredit the work 

 of Rafinesque. 



6 The Western Review and Miscellaneous Magazine, Lexington, 1819-20. 



7 Ichthyologia Ohiensis, or Natural History of the Fishes inhabiting 

 the River Ohio and its tributary Streams, preceded by a physical descrip- 

 tion of the Ohio and its branches. By C. S. Rafinesque, Professor of 

 Botany and Natural History in Transylvania University, Author of the 

 Analysis of Nature, &c. &c. Member of the Literary and Philosophical 

 Society of New- York, the Historical Society of New- York, the Lyceum of 

 Natural History of New- York, the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, the American Antiquarian Society, the Royal Institute of 

 Natural Sciences of Naples, the Italian Society of Arts and Sciences, the 

 Medical Societies of Lexington and Cincinnati, &c. &c. 



"The art of seeing well, or of noticing and distinguishing with accuracy 

 the objects which we perceive, is a high faculty of the mind, unfolded in 

 few individuals, and despised by those who can neither acquire it, nor 

 appreciate its results." 



Lexington, Kentucky: printed for the author by W. G. Hunt. (Price 

 one dollar.) (Pp. 1-90. Lexington, 1820.) 



Fitzpatrick (see Bibliography, No. 228) gives a list of 14 copies of 

 this work, the whereabouts of which are known; we can add another 

 from the library of Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, now in the collections of 

 Western Reserve University; it is bound up with Dr. Kirtland's notebook 

 on birds and fishes, and labeled "Scraps of Natural History. My Note 

 Book;" a written notice on the inside of the cover, imploring the finder 

 to return the volume to its owner if lost, is signed by Dr. Kirtland and 

 dated "Cleveland, O., Oct. 16th, 1839." Probably fewer than 20 original 

 copies of the work now exist. It was reproduced in a limited edition, with a 

 sketch of Rafinesque's life and works by Richard Ellsworth Call, published 

 by the Burrows Brothers' Company of Cleveland in 1899. 



