156 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



lians thought that he was using it as a dye-stuff; 

 " and this," said he, *' I let them believe." Nearly 

 two hundred thousand pounds had been shipped 

 by him before the secret of the trade was discov- 

 ered, since which time the Sicilians have prose- 

 cuted the business on their own account. He 

 began to turn his attention to the animals of the 

 sea, and here arose his passion for ichthyology. 

 The red-shirted Sicilian fishermen used to bring 

 to him the strange creatures which came in their 

 nets. In 1810 he published two works on the 

 fishes of Sicily, and for our first knowledge of 

 very many of the Mediterranean fishes we are in- 

 debted to these Sicilian papers of Rafinesque. It 

 is unfortunately true, however, that very little real 

 gain to science has come through this knowledge. 

 Rafinesque's descriptions in these works are so 

 brief, so hasty, and so often drawn from memory, 

 that later naturalists have been put to great trouble 

 in trying to make them out. A peculiar, restless, 

 impatient enthusiasm is characteristic of all his 

 writings, the ardor of the explorer without the 

 patience of the investigator. 1 



In Sicily, Rafinesque was visited by the English 

 ornithologist, William Swainson. Swainson seems 

 to have been a great admirer of " the eccentric 

 naturalist," as he called him. Of him Rafinesque 

 says : " Swainson often went with me to the moun- 

 tains. He carried a butterfly-net to catch insects 



1 Dr. Elliott Coues has wittily suggested that as the words 

 "grotesque," "picturesque," and the like, are used to designate cer- 

 tain literary styles, the adjective " rafin^w" may be similarly em- 

 ployed for work like that of the author now under consideration. 



