740 FISHES—INTRODUCTION. 
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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 | by C. 8. Rafinesque, | — | Professor of Botany and Natural History in 
Transylvania University, Author of the Analysis of Nature, &c., &c., member of the 
Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, the Historical Society of New York, 
the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, 
the American Antiquarian Society, the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Naples, 
the Italian Society of Arts and Sciences, the Medical Societies of Lexington and Cincin- 
nati, &c., &e,, | —| The art of seeing well, or of noticing and distinguishing with 
accuracy the objects which we perceive is a high faculty of the mind, unfolded in few 
individuals, and despised by those who can neither acquire it, nor appreciate its re- 
sults | — | Lexington, Kentucky | printed for the Author by W. G. Hunt (price one 
dollar). | — | 1620 | (1 vol., 8vo, 90 pp.). 
On the reverse of the title page: 
These Pages| and the Discoveries which they contain |in one of the principal 
Branches | of Natural History, | are respectfully Insribed | by the Anthor | To his fel- 
low-labourers in the same field of Science | Prof. Samuel L. Mitchill, M. D | who has de- 
scribed the Atlantic Fishes of New York, | and to | C. A. LeSueur, | who was the first 
to explore the Ichthyology of the Great American Lakes, &c. | In token | of Friend- 
ship, Respect, and Congratulation. 
This singular work has been for several reasons a stumbling block in 
the progress of the study of American Ichthyology. This has been 
partly owing to errors of observation on the part of the author, partly to 
the admixture of statements derived from memory, imagination, or hear- 
say with statements of fact, and, finally, in no slight degree to the fact 
that Rafinesque’s accounts were taken from the living fishes, and hence 
were not to be readily interpreted by workers in the closet with preserved 
specimens. 
The difficulty of obtaining the volume, and the fact that several writers - 
of authority, especially French and English, have set the bad example 
of ignoring Rafinesque’s works altogether, because in their limited 
knowledge of the local fauna, they have be unable readily to determine 
his species, have also helped to cause confusion. 
Rafinesque’s work has been well summed up by Professor Agassiz : 
‘‘ Nothing is more to be regretted for the progress of natural history in this country 
than that Rafinesque cid not put up somewhere a collection of all the genera and 
species he had established, with well-authenticated labels, or that his contemporaries 
did not follow in his steps, or at least preserve the tradition of his doings, instead of 
decrying him and appealing to foreign authority against him. Tracing his course as a 
naturalist Quring his residence in this country, it is plain that he alarmed those with 
whom he had intercourse, by his innovations, and that they preferred to lean upon the 
authority of the great naturalist of the age, then residing in Hurope, who, however, 
knew little of the special history of this conntry, than to trust a somewhat hasty man 
who was living among them, and who had collected a vast amcunt of information from 
all parts of the States, upon a variety of objects then entirely new to science. From 
