FOREWORD 



The pamphlet entitled Annals of Nature by 

 C. S. Rafinesque has become very rare. Issued on 

 the frontier at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1820, it nat- 

 urally attracted no attention at home and but little 

 abroad. However small and unimportant as the pam- 

 phlet may have seemed to naturalists of nearly a cen- 

 tury ago it nevertheless is of value to earnest students 

 of the present time. On the pages of this pamphlet 

 twenty -five new genera and one hundred and twenty- 

 four new species are proposed and characterized, the lot 

 being distributed throughout the animal and vegeta- 

 ble kingdoms. Of animals there are described one 

 genus and twelve species of mammals, four species of 

 birds, eighteen species of reptiles, one genus and four 

 species of fishes, three genera and three species of Crus- 

 tacea, ten genera and twenty -three species of insects; 

 four species of leeches, three genera and nine species 

 of moUusks, one genus and two species of polyps, and 

 one^enus and two species of porostomes. There are 

 given three genera and thirty-eight species of flower- 

 ing plants, one species of fern, one genus and three 

 species of fungi, and one genus and one species of 

 algae. A great many of these proposals are now recog- 

 nized and more doubtless would have been were the 

 work not so rare that access to a copy is exceedingly 

 difficult. This copy is a line for line, page for page 

 reprint so ' as to correspond exactly with the original 

 in all particulars in order that references to either are 

 the same for both. This issue is a very limited edition 

 and is for the benefit of students of the sciences who 

 wish to appreciate the efforts of a pioneer naturalist. 



T. J. FiTZPATRICK 



Publication Series 

 No. 1 



