18 ICHTHYOLOGIA OHIBNSIS 



his early manhood it would appear that his ambition 

 was to be gratified. 



Rafinesque made two voyages to America, the first 

 in the year 1802. In the spring of that year, in com- 

 pany with his younger brother Anthony Augustus, 

 he landed in Philadelphia, ' ' provided with an 

 adventure and many letters of introduction." His 

 father had conducted various mercantile adventures 

 in that city, and had died there of the yellow fever, in 

 1793. Rafinesque himself had, at this time, settled 

 upon the life of a merchant for his future occupation, 

 and to the duties of his new relation he addressed 

 himself with energy. But his love for the woods 

 and fields, the flowers and animals there to be found, 

 so well developed during the years of his boyhood, 

 soon enticed him from the counting-room and the 

 wearisome duties of a clerkship, and he began anew 

 to cultivate Nature. He had already done very much 

 among the plants of Italy and in France, in the 

 region round about Marseilles, and he was not 

 entirely unacquainted with the Linnean system of 

 classification and nomenclature. On his arrival in 

 America, from the very first the new and rich plant 

 life had attracted his attention, and the long walks 

 he took about the suburbs of Philadelphia soon made 

 him acquainted with its floral wealth. He minutely 

 described all the plants he found, as he himself 

 remarks, and made drawings of many of them. 

 Though bent on fortune, he had time for recreation, 

 taken in these long scientific walks, and laid the' 

 foundation for his botanical work on American plants 

 in later years. 



During this stay in Philadelphia, Rafinesque made 

 the acquaintance of John D. Clifford, afterward a 



