DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 5 



Philomathic Society of 1803, previously referred to, viz. : ' ' Turnix 

 javanica ' ' and ' ' Dinopium ( Picoides) erythronotus. ' ' In the same 

 year our indefatigable author published in a work on the funda- 

 mental principles of Somiology,^ some notes relating to the 

 classification of birds, the most important being the substitution 

 of his names ' ' Anseria ' ' and ' ' Apodium ' ' for Anser and Apus. 

 In the same year he also contributed an article (No. 193) to 

 the second volume of his scientific journal, the " Specchio, " * 

 on the arrival of the Skylark in Sicily in the autumn. 



This is the most lengthy and only popular article on orni- 

 thology by him that I have seen. Another work of his, pub- 

 lished during his stay in Sicily, and one of the rarest of his 

 many scarce publications, the ' ' Analyse de la Nature, ' ' ^ relates 

 extensively to bird classification. In this he gives his own in- 

 terpretation of the Nature System, dividing birds into 1 class, 

 1 sub-class, 6 orders, 25 families and about three times that 

 many sub-families. In Dr. Richmond's review of this work he 

 credits Rafinesque with proposing therein 181 new bird genera, 

 of which only 20 are properly introduced to our consideration. 

 Of the remainder, 126 are bare names {nomina nuda) and worth- 

 less, and 35 are based on unnamed species of the preceding 

 genus, which can be recognized in many cases by allusion. As 

 to how many are tenable, the Doctor does not opine. The work 

 referred to followed his ' ' Somiology ' ' of the previous year, 

 already referred to, in which is outlined his laws of nomencla- 

 ture and the classification of animals and plants. So far as I 

 can discover, these references are the only ones relating to birds 

 in the publications of Rafinesque up to the time of his leaving 

 Philadelphia for Kentucky in May, 1818. He returned to Phil- 

 adelphia that fall, and in the summer of 1819 again reached 

 Lexington, and from that time until his final return to Phila- 

 delphia in 1826 he industriously explored the country drained 



1 Principes Fondatnentaux de Somiologie, etc. Palermo, 1814, 8vo, 52 pp. 



* Specchio delle Scienze o Giomale Enciclop. di Sicilia, etc Palermo, 

 1814, 2 vols., Svo. 



* Analyse de la Nature, ou Tableau de I'Univers, etc. Palermo, 1815, 

 12mo, 224 pp. , portrait. See frontispiece. 



