1876. ] A Neglected Naturalist. 471 
descriptions. This may have led European writers, intrenched 
in the conviction that no traveling naturalist could invalidate 
or even anticipate the labors of a Cuvier or a Valenciennes, and 
even frankly stating that “the natural history of North Ameri- 
can fresh-water fishes is in its infancy, and only a small propor- 
tion of the literature pertaining to it has been critically exam- 
ined,” to believe that they could afford to reject all of Rafi- 
nesque’s work, and then coin such contemptuous expressions as 
“Rafinesquian genera ” for groups rejected without examination. 
I may say here, however, that the term is not a reproach to 
those acquainted with the value of the work, for Rafinesque was 
the first writer on American fishes who distinguished with even 
tolerable accuracy those groups now called genera, and for thirty- 
five years after him there was no writer on our fishes of whom 
Professor Agassiz’s words are not true, that “ most of their 
generic descriptions are only vague specific descriptions, and their 
specific descriptions refer chiefly to individual peculiarities of the- 
specimens before them. 
American writers who have neglected Rafinesque may plead 
the same difficulties in extenuation, but have in some cases, I am 
willing to believe, been influenced more by the habit of neglect 
toward him. As a fisher in the streams. tributary to the Ohio I 
have become profoundly impressed by the accuracy of the work 
he did when laboring under so many disadvantages. He was surely 
Indefatigable in collecting, and more accurate than the custom and 
habit of his time demanded. The general confusion characteriz- 
ing so much of the literature on the fresh-water fishes of the Unit- 
d States may afford some reason why no one has made a dis- 
tinction, in the case of Rafinesque, between the descriptions from 
Specimens he had seen and. those based on the report of others. 
e failure so to distinguish, added to the unfortunate results of 
the well-intended attempt at identification by one or two western 
ichthyologists, and the consequent lack of confidence when the 
screpancies were proved, has led to the rejection of nearly all 
IS work and to the addition of many useless synonyms to our 
Nomenclature. 
tafinesque referred a few fishes conjecturally to genera on the 
testimony of others, when he had never seen a specimen. These 
my be dropped without remark or prejudice, in accordance with 
the universal custom. 
_ He gave descriptions of some very singular fishes from draw- 
mgs by John James Audubon. Whatever blame there may be 
