AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. 153 
AN ECCENTRIC NATURALIST. 
T is now nearly seventy years since the first 
student of our Western fishes crossed the Falls 
of the Ohio and stood on Indiana soil. He came 
on foot, with a note-book.in one hand and a hickory 
stick in the other, and his capacious pockets were 
full of wild-flowers, shells, and toads. He wore 
“a long, loose coat of yellow nankeen, stained yel- 
lower by the clay of the roads, and variegated by 
the juices of plants.” In short, in all respects of 
dress, manners, and appearance, he would be de- 
scribed by the modern name of “tramp.” Nev- 
ertheless, no more remarkable figure has ever 
appeared in the annals of Indiana or in the annals 
of science. To me it has always possessed a pecu- 
liar interest; and so, for a few moments, I wish to 
call up before you the figure of Rafinesque, with his 
yellow nankeen coat, “his sharp tanned face, and 
his bundle of plants, under which a pedler would 
groan,” before it recedes into the shadows of 
oblivion. 
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was born in 
Constantinople in the year 1784. His father was 
a French merchant from Marseilles doing business 
in Constantinople, and his mother was a German 
girl, born in Greece, of the family name of Schmaltz. 
Rafinesque himself, son of a Franco-Turkish father 
