30 Biology in America 



continued jumping and running round and round, until he 

 was fairly exhausted, when he begged me to procure one of the 

 animals for him, as he felt convinced they belonged to a * new 

 species. ' Although I was convinced of the contrary, I took up 

 the bow of my demolished Cremona, and administering a smart 

 tap to each of the bats as it came up, soon got specimens 

 enough. The war ended, I again bade him good-night, but 

 could not help observing the state of the room. It was strewed 

 with plants, which had been previously arranged with care. 



* ' He saw my regret for the havoc that had been created, but 

 added that he would soon put his plants to rights after he 

 had secured his new specimens of bats. ' ' 4 



Rafinesque was a marked example of the combination of 

 brilliance with eccentricity; his career, filled with striking 

 contrasts of light and shade, forms one of the most pathetic 

 pictures in American science. Born in Constantinople, 

 of Franco-German parentage, traveler, zoologist, botanist, 

 chemist, geographer, archaeologist, historian, philosopher, 

 economist and poet, professor in Transylvania University at 

 Lexington, Kentucky, medalist of the Geographical Society of 

 Paris, associate and correspondent of many of the leading 

 scientists of his day, dying at last in penury, unbefriended 

 and alone in his garret home in Philadelphia ; his very corpse 

 seized by his landlord for sale to the dissecting room, rescued 

 by friends and buried in an obscure burial ground, how in the 

 heart of the great city; his course was marked by flashes of 

 brilliance, but ended in obscurity and gloom. 



Like many another Rafinesque was ahead of his generation. 

 When he submitted to the Academy of Natural Sciences in 

 Philadelphia a paper describing two genera of fossil jellyfish, 

 it was rejected as unworthy of publication, such a thing as a 

 fossil jellyfish being considered an impossibility in those days. 

 He had clearly in mind the idea of evolution at a time when 

 the doctrine of the fixity of species was firmly entrenched in 

 men 's minds. In the title page of his poem on * ' The World or 

 Instability," published in 1836, he writes: 



* ' If Solomon did say, that nothing new 

 Under the sun was seen, 'tis not quite true : 

 Since we contend that every hour and day 

 Brings novelties, with changes due array. 

 Whatever had a birth must change sustain, 

 Unsteady ever be ; but not in vain : 

 Enjoying life must die to live again, 

 In after lives perfection to attain." 



4 The foregoing quotations are from Audubon 's diary in Buchanan 's 

 "Life of Audubon." 



