156 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
lians thought that he was using it as a dye-stuff; 
“and this,” said he, ‘I let them believe.” Nearly 
two hundred thousand pounds had been shipped 
by him before the secret of the trade was discov- 
ered, since which time the Sicilians have prose- 
cuted the business on their own account. He 
began to turn his attention to the animals of the 
sea, and here arose his passion for ichthyology. 
The red-shirted Sicilian fishermen used to bring 
to him the strange creatures which came in their 
nets. In 1810 he published two works on the 
fishes of Sicily, and for our first knowledge of 
very many of the Mediterranean fishes we are in- 
debted to these Sicilian papers of Rafinesque. It 
is unfortunately true, however, that very little real 
gain to science has come through this knowledge. 
Rafinesque’s descriptions in these works are so 
brief, so hasty, and so often drawn from memory, 
that later naturalists have been put to great trouble 
in trying to make them out. A peculiar, restless, 
impatient enthusiasm is characteristic of all his 
writings,— the ardor of the explorer without the 
patience of the investigator. 
In Sicily, Rafinesque was visited by the English 
ornithologist, William Swainson. Swainson seems 
to have been a great admirer of “the eccentric 
naturalist,” as he called him. Of him Rafinesque’ 
says: “Swainson often went with me to the moun- 
tains. He carried a butterfly-net to catch insects 
1 Dr. Elliott Coues has wittily suggested that as the words 
“ grotesque,” “picturesgze,” and the like, are used to designate cer- 
tain literary styles, the adjective “ rafinesgue” may be similarly em- 
ployed for work like that of the author now under consideration. 
