6 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



by the Ohio River and its tributaries, traveling many thousands 

 of miles entirely on foot. 



During this period of over six years he published an article 

 relating to birds in the American Monthly Magazine and 

 Critical Review of New York, for 1818, volume 4, describing a 



^•'Pj.^;^,^ j^g^ genus and species of bird, *' Rimamphuscrimtiis,^^ or Citron 



Open Bill, "A beautiful little Bird five inches long, shot in 

 Indiana in July, living on insects, darting on them from the 

 Trees," etc. To us moderns this new creation is absolutely not 

 identifiable, and we are rather suspicious that Rafinesque never 

 saw it, but probably drew his inspiration from some fellow 

 naturalist, although he does give, in addition, the length of its 

 tail! The following year (1819) was published in the Journal 

 De Physique of Paris, his prodrome * of seventy new genera 

 of animals from the United States ; among these are three of 

 birds, in which he redescribes the Citron Open Bill and adds 

 ^'HelmitheroSf^^ the generic name by which our Worm-eating 

 Warbler is known ; also ^^ Symphemia,^^ a name long used by the 

 A. O. U. for the Willet by a mistaken identification of the type 

 species named by Rafinesque in this description. In 1820 

 Rafinesque showed great activity, and in the numbers of the 

 Western Review and Miscellaneous Magazine * of Lexington he 

 published many contributions, chiefly on botany, ichthyology 

 and geology, supplementing these with an occasional " Faunal 

 Note." I have been unable to consult a copy of this journal, 

 but hope to get word from the Library of Congress as to whether 

 any of these relate to birds. 



The same year we find Rafinesque' s first published reference 

 to his celebrated contemporary, J. J. Audubon, the ornitholo- 

 gist. This is given in his ' ' Annals of Nature, ' ' a pamphlet of 

 sixteen pages published in Lexington, Kentucky, March, 1820. 

 On page 4 of this brochure our author describes four Kentucky 

 and Missouri birds which evidently were based on hearsay ac- 

 counts, either casually or designedly, given him by Audubon 



^ Jour, de Phys. , de Chemie, et d' Hist. Naturelle, etc. Paris, 1819, vol. 88, 

 pp. 417, 429. 



'Vols. 2 and 3, 1820. 



