AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 297 
and unchangeable things, and in many other respects 
was fifty years ahead of his time; but nothing was ever 
carefully worked out in his fertile mind, with the conse- 
quence that the world paid no heed to his crude and 
undigested ideas. 
The great mass of Rafinesque’s books and mono- 
graphs, his “tracts,” broadsides, and ephemeral papers 
of all sorts, extending to nearly a thousand titles, must 
have gone into paper rags, when not used to kindle 
fires, for he was generous in their distribution, and they 
are now exceedingly rare. He touched nearly every- 
thing, it is true, but little that he touched, especially 
in this later period of his life, did he ever truly orna- 
ment. His best pioneer work, in the opinion of com- 
petent students, was that done upon the fishes of Sicily 
and the natural history of the Ohio Valley; his Medical 
Flora, in two volumes (1828 and 1830), is also admitted 
to have possessed real value; but his writings are now 
sought after as literary or scientific curiosities, and as 
such they are unique. 
No doubt Rafinesque was often treated unjustly, 
either through ignorance or intent, while many natural- 
ists were exasperated by the barbed arrows which he 
shot into the air or direct at the mark. Others through 
sheer inability to follow him gave up the attempt, one 
writer ?° saying that such an attitude was justified when 
it appeared that he had made six species out of one, 
not to speak of several different genera and two sub- 
families. If anyone still believes that Rafinesque has 
been misjudged, says Giinther,"* let him read his letters 
to Swainson, from 1809 to 1840, fifty-three in number, 
Isaac Lea, in A Synopsis of the Family of Naiades, pp. 8-9 (Phila- 
delphia, 1836). 
"See Bibliography, No. 204. 
