470 3 A Neglected Naturalist. [August, 
C. S. Rafinesque was one of the geniuses that occasionally ap- 
pear, to puzzle people oť steady habits. His early life was full 
of the vicissitudes which may be told of nearly every pioneer in 
American science, and he was thrown on our shores for the 
second time from a shipwreck in which he had lost every tangi- 
_ble result of his labors in science ; the sea had taken everything 
but hope and energy. Similar misfortunes have since broken the 
spirit of more than one student of science, but whatever cloud 
these may have cast over the mind of Rafinesque, it did not affect 
his zeal and capacity for work, and the result was so prodigious 
that I confine myself to a consideration of his labors in ichthyol- 
ogy, since here he has received most blame from recent followers, 
and pass by his work in the other branches of science with only 
a statement of the result. 
He proposed a natural system of classification in botany at atime 
when the Linnzean system was as universally recognized in this 
country as is the binomial nomenclature now. Thirteen genera, 
eight subgenera, and sixteen species of the plants referred to in 
Gray’s Manualare his. His writings on conchology have been con- 
sidered worth editing by Binney and Tryon. Of our reptiles and 
batrachians, four genera and six species bear his name. He de- 
scribed four genera and four species that are retained in the cur- 
rent literature treating of our mammals. The genus Helm- 
therus of birds was proposed by him. There is implied in this 
brief outline an amount of labor to be appreciated only by those 
who themselves are laborers, so 
In 1820, the year in which Maine was admitted to the Union, 
when the population of the United States was about nine mill- 
ion, and the population of Cincinnati was nine thousand, there 
was published at Lexington, Ky., “ for the author,” ©. S. Rafi- 
nesque, a little octavo book of ninety pages, with the following 
title : “ Ichthyologia Ohiensis, or Natural History of the Fishes 
inhabiting the River Ohio and its Tributary Streams. Preceded 
by a Physical Description of the Ohio and its Branches,” and with 
the following motto: — i SR 
“The art of seeing well, or of noticing and distinguishing 
with accuracy the objects which we perceive, is a high faculty 
the mind, unfolded in few individuals, and despised by thos? 
who can neither acquire it nor appreciate its results.” aji 
The book is now very rare, the borrowed copy before me i 
though worn and faded, being valued at fifty dollars, s0 that 2 j 
very difficult to verify a reference to it or to consult the origin: 
