The Nautilus. 



Vol.. XXX. FEBRUARY 1917. No. 10 



RAFINESQUE'S GENERA OF FRESH-WATEE SNAILS. 



BY HENRY A. PILSBRY. 



The rules of nomenclature now in force allow the resurrection 

 of some generic names which were formerly thought to be dead 

 and buried, among them several of those of Rafinesque. It 

 seems desirable, therefore, to fix the types of all of them, so 

 that inevitable changes, however unwelcome, may be made, 

 once for all. 



Rafinesque has the reputation of having been a misunder- 

 stood and neglected genius. It is luck}' that we had few such 

 geniuses. One or two others would have practically scrapped 

 the nomenclature of our fresh-water shells. But science is 

 democratic. Fool, lunatic and savant have the same considera- 

 tion in nomenclature. This is not the fault of the rules ; it is 

 inherent in democratic institutions. 



Returning to Rafinesque, we may fairly claim that he was 

 versatile, an all-around zoologist and botanist, besides several 

 other things. In common with Lamarck and others of his 

 school, he saw clearly that the vast increase in the knowledge 

 of nature in the half-century since Linnaeus demanded an 

 expansion of the Linnaean generic system. 



His best work was apparently in ichthyology. In writing of 

 mollusks he seemed unable to express himself clearly, either in 

 English or French. His generic descriptions are often mere 

 words. One gains an idea of what he was driving at with the 

 greatest difficulty. Each diagnosis is a cryptogram. \Vhat 

 wonder that really scientific zoologists of the time, such as Say, 



