Ichthyologic Work 



The papers and books published by Rafinesque 

 which relate to ichthyologic matters date from the 

 year 1810. The list is headed by the Caratteri di 

 alcuni nuovi generi, etc. , based upon his studies of the 

 fishes of the Mediterranean. The field thus entered 

 was almost unoccupied, and there was little of sys- 

 tematic history before his time. The elder Pliny, 

 and a few since his time, had recorded various vaga- 

 ries and some valuable facts relating to the Mediter- 

 ranean forms ; but systematic ichthyology was unborn 

 until about the advent of Rafinesque. A single con- 

 temporary of Rafinesque, A. Risso, of Nice, had 

 accomplished some systematic work and laid the foun- 

 dations of the ichthyology of the Mediterranean.* 

 Whether Rafinesque knew of the work of Risso at 

 the time he published his first paper, is a matter of 

 difference of opinion. It is, however, quite certain 

 that, though Rafinesque described fifty-one new 

 genera and one hundred and fifty-four new species 

 of Mediterranean fishes in the Caratteri, his work was 



*The full title of this famous work of Risso's, for which I am in- 

 debted to the courtesy of President David Starr Jordan, of Stanford 

 University, is as follows: 



Ichthyologie | de Nice, | ou | Histoire Naturelle des Poissons | du 

 department des alpes maritimes; | Par A. Risso, | Membre associe 

 de l'Academie Imperiale de Turin, Corres- | pondant de la Societe 



philomatique de Paris, etc. | | Est quadam prodire tenus, si non 



datur ultra. | Horat. Epist. Lib. I. | | Avec II planches repre- 



sentant 40 poissons nouveaux. | Paris, | Chez P. Schoell, rue des 

 Fosses-Saint-Germain- | l'Auxerrois, No. 29. | | 1810. 



