4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



gage, including his collections and manuscripts, having sunk in 

 the Sound. Nothing daunted, he eventually returned by way 

 of New York to Philadelphia in 1818, and thence to Kentucky, 

 joining there his early and most intimate friend, J. D. Clifford. 

 Up to this time his published books and occasional papers 

 already numbered 269 titles and sub-titles, of which only 7 

 contained anything relating to birds.' Rafinesque's third con- 

 tribution to literature also relates to birds, being a note by Dr. 

 Mitchill in the New York Medical Repository of October, 1804 

 (page 208). It was taken from a letter written to him by 

 Rafinesque from Philadelphia, and relates to the "Canvassback 

 Duck and its Food, ' ' identifying our Canvass-back as the same 

 as the Anasferina of the Old World, and describing the plant on 

 which it feeds at Havre de Grace as a new species, ' ' Valisneria 

 americana.^ ^ In a work which he published in Sicily in 1810,* 

 chiefly devoted to descriptions and figures of new fish, we find 

 14 Sicilian birds, described and named as new. No figures of 

 these are given as in the case of fish. They include one hawk, 

 two herons, one sandpiper, two finches, one wagtail and seven 

 warblers. With one or two exceptions his descriptions of these 

 are reasonably full. In 1814 he issued at Palermo a tiny 

 pamphlet of 55 pages, ^ in which he names a new curlew, a 

 warbler and a hawk he found in Sicily. The query naturally 

 arises as to how many of these seventeen so-called new birds of 

 Sicily are valid new species, to which the names given by Rafin- 

 esque now belong. I am unable to answer this question, and 

 note that Dr. C. W. Richmond, who published a reprint of the 

 majority of Rafinesque's bird-articles in the Auk of 1909, does 

 not undertake to identify them. It is not impossible, however, 

 that some of these names may yet hold good. On page 2 of the 

 printed paper covers of the ' ' Precis, ' ' Rafinesque gives binomial 

 names of the first two new species described in the Bull, of the 



^See "Eafinesque; a Sketch, with Bibliography." By T. J. Fitzpatrick. 

 Des Moines, 1911; 239 pp. 



''Caratteri Nuovi Generi e Specie Anim. e. Piante d. Sicilia. Palermo, 

 1810, pp. 5 to 7. 



'Precis des Decouvertes et Travaux Somiologiques, etc. Palermo, 1814, 

 24mo, 66 pp. 



