DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 11 



color of its toes, adding the English name, '* Macarran Eagle." 

 This novelty further interests us because of its discoverer's 

 statement that "Mr. Audubon admired this Eagle and wanted 

 to purchase him, but Mr. Macarran would not take less than 

 $100 for him." Between 1832 and 1836, the date of the pub- 

 lication of his ''Life of Travels," Rafinesque does not seem to 

 have given any bird-notes to the world. In that work he makes 

 some allusions to them, as already quoted. Another reference 

 to Audubon is there made on page 90. It relates to the period 

 of Rafinesque's life in Philadelphia in 1831. He says — " I was 

 inclined * * * to carry (to France) my discoveries and collec- 

 tions, hoping to publish my works there. Audubon would 

 never have been able to publish his Birds, if he had not gone to 

 England." In another of these, referring to one of his many 

 tramps in the pine-barrens of New Jersey, he says that in July 

 1833, — " I passed through the Grouse Plains, without trees, the 

 soil is gravelly, covered with bushes and has no value. I stopped 

 at Cedar Bridge to Botanize and found many plants. ' ' What a 

 familiar sound this has to D. V. 0. C. men ! An earlier entry 

 in this book refers to Alexander Wilson in an interesting way. 

 Rafinesque in 1804 was preparing to return to Sicily, when, he 

 says, he was almost side-tracked by some one suggesting that 

 he ' ' might be admitted as Botanist in the expedition which 

 Lewis and Clark were then preparing," and continues, — "it 

 appears that Wilson, who wished to join the party as Ornitholo- 

 gist or Hunter, could not obtain the permission." Rafinesque 

 naively adds, — "The same might have happened with me but I 

 did not apply"! Another reference to his only English confi- 

 dante and companion, W. Swainson, who collected with him 

 in Sicily and regularly corresponded with him, relates that in 

 1824 (page 73), "Swainson wanted all the Birds of Kentucky. 

 I could not satisfy all my friends abroad [in sending such 

 collections] , not having funds to spend. ' ' 



Birds appear to have been quite ignored in Rafinesque's later 

 publications, he being entirely absorbed in botany, philology, 

 ethnology, the manufacture and sale of " Pulmel," his sovereign 

 remedy for consumption, and in the establishment of a new 

 system of savings banks. 



