xt7np55dcc0h https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7np55dcc0h/data/mets.xml Rafinesque, C. S. (Constantine Samuel), 1783-1840. 1899  books b92-212-30910275 English Burrows Bros. Co., : Cleveland : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Fishes Ohio River.Call, Richard Ellsworth, 1856- Ichthyologia ohiensis, or, Natural history of the fishes inhabiting the river Ohio and its tributary streams  / by C.S. Rafinesque ; a verbatim et literatim reprint of the original, with a sketch of the life, the ichthyologic works, and the ichthyologic bibliography of Rafinsque, by Richard Ellsworth Call. text Ichthyologia ohiensis, or, Natural history of the fishes inhabiting the river Ohio and its tributary streams  / by C.S. Rafinesque ; a verbatim et literatim reprint of the original, with a sketch of the life, the ichthyologic works, and the ichthyologic bibliography of Rafinsque, by Richard Ellsworth Call. 1899 2002 true xt7np55dcc0h section xt7np55dcc0h 







Ichthyologia
  Ohiensis

 



The edition consists of two
hundred andfifty copies alt
       numbered

     No. 7d

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CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE

    [ From his .4nalysc dz la Na/ure. I

 


Ichthvologia Ohiensis

  or Natural History of the
  Fishes Inhabiting the River
  Ohio and its Tributary Streams
                  BY
         C. S. Rafinesque
    A verbatim et literatim reprint of
    the original, with a Sketch of the Life,
    the Ichthyologic Work, and the Ich-
    thyologic Bibliography of Rafinesque
                 BY
Richard Ellsworth Call, M.-, M.A. M.D. Ph.D










              Cleveland
        The Burrows Brothers Co
                1899

 





























    COPYRIGHT, 1899
          BY
THE BURROWS BROTHERS CO


   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED



Toe ImZerial Press, Cleveland


 















                  Contents


PREFACE                                       I I
BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH            -                15
ICHTHYOLOGIC WORK                             25
ICHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS (Text)                  37
BIBLIOGRAPHIA ICHTHYOLOGIA                 . i63
APPENDIX                                   . 173

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Illustrations



CONSTANTINE SAMUEL RAFINESQUE
      From his Analyse de la Nature.



Frontispiece



FACSIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF THE ORIGINAL
      From the copy in the Library of the Historical and
    Philosophical Society of Ohio.
SKETCH IN RAFINESQUE'S LETTER TO DR. DANIEL
    DRAKE



39



1 75

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Preface



  The great importance of the Ichthyologia Ohiensis in
ichthyologic nomenclature, coupled with its rarity,-
the existence of but eight copies being certainly
known,- makes necessary the republication of the
work. In this edition, every fact of value to the
bibliographer has been studiously regarded. Our
reprint is an exact copy of the original, including all
typographic errors, excepting only the style of type.
  We follow the original publication of the Fishes of
the River Ohzo as presented in The Western Review and
Miscellaneous Magazine, a literary journal, published
at Lexington, Kentucky, by William Gibbes Hunt,
during the years I819-21. The publication of the
papers in question began in December, I 819, and
proceeded at more or less regular intervals until
their completion in November, 1820. During the
publication of the magazine articles, Rafinesque had
the matter arranged in octavo forms, and reprinted
from  the same type.   Owing to the fact that the
separate introductory titles to the several articles
were omitted in the oversheets thus arranged, the
pagination is slightly different, and the page matter
is not exactly the same, in the place of original
publication and in Rafinesque's separate edition. To
facilitate reference to both editions, the magazine
pagination is inserted in its proper place in the text,
bracketed and in roman type; the pagination of the
Ichthyologia is likewise inserted, in italic type.

 

ICHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS



  To further facilitate bibliographic accuracy, the
subjoined table will serve to help. Especially is this
inserted here in order that certain data, omitted in a
similar list by Dr. David S. Jordan, in his " Review
of Rafinesque's Memoirs on North American Fishes,"
U. S. National Museum, 1877, Bulletin no. ix., p. 7,
may be supplied, and that certain errors therein, in
the matter of pagination and numbering of the parts
of volumes, may be corrected:

V01   NO.      DATE.       SERIES NO. W. R.  M. M. I. 0.

  I.   5.   December, iSig.     I.    305 - 313.I - 13.
       6.   January, 1820.     II.    361 - 377.13- 29.
 II.   I.  February, 1820.    III.    49- 57-  29- 37.
       3.  April, 1820.        IV.    I69 - 177.37 -45-
       4.   May, S20.          V.    235 - 242.45- 53-
       5-  June, 1820.        VI.    299 - 307.53 -60.
       6.   July. 1820.       VII.    355 - 363.60- 69.
III.  3.   October, 1820.    VIII.   i65 - I 73.69 - 77.
       4.   November, 1820.    IX.   244- 252. 77 - S4.

By the aid of this table, the investigator of the fresh-
water fishes of the Ohio valley will be able to verify
any citation from either the Ichthyologia or from the
original publication in The Western Review and Mis-
cellaneous Magazine.
  I am under great obligations to Reuben T. Durrett,
LL.D., of Louisville, Kentucky, for the opportunity
to transcribe the text of this reprint from the orig-
inal, and for numerous favors connected with the
consultation of rare bibliographic matter in his
library. Robert Clarke, Esq., of Cincinnati, has
enabled me to consult the only copy of the Ichthyologia
known to exist in the city, in the library of the His-
torical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. He also
had copied for me the additions which appear as a



12

 


                    PREFA CE                    13

supplement in the Ichthyologia, together with the
index.  Rafinesque therein has corrected certain
errors in typography, and made a few changes in
nomenclature, which usually escape the attention of
those students who depend for information solely on
the very rare magazine in which his papers originally
appeared.
  The bibliography is reproduced from my Life and
Writings of Rafinesque, which appeared in January,
I895, as "Filson Club Publications Number Ten."
The portrait is reproduced from the same volume,
and is that which appeared in i 8 io in the Analyse de
la Nature, in Sicily.
                                        R. E. C.
 BROOKLYN, N. Y., December, x898.

 This page in the original text is blank.

 








Biographic



Sketch

 This page in the original text is blank.


 





Sketch of the Life of Rafinesque



  The author of the Ichthyologia Ohiensis, Constantine
Samuel Rafinesque, was born in Galata, a suburb of
Constantinople, October 22, 1783. His father was a
French merchant of Marseilles, and his mother,
Grecian born, of German parentage, from Saxony.
Very little is known of the antecedents of Rafinesque,
and the family name is now extinct. The early life
of the lad was not dissimilar from that of his asso-
ciates, save in the one respect that he early developed
a love for Nature and the thousand varied ways in
which her life laws were exemplified around him.
The birds, plants, insects, and fish of his various
homes - for hi3 family frequentlv changed its resi-
dence, owing to the business necessities of his
father-early attcacteJ 'lis at'ention, and became
the objects of his cariots s.ucoy. He seems to have
been allowed full liberty in these matters, his scho-
lastic training suffering to some extent through his
great love of outdoor life. His father died when
the lad was about eleven years of age, after which
time his mother had the sole direction of his train-
ing. His early reading was characterized by inor-
dinate love of books of travel and adventure, further
fostered, perhaps, by his father's accounts of his
travels, upon mercantile expeditions to foreign lands.
At a very early period Rafinesque determined to
become " a great traveler," and for some years of

 


ICHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS



his early manhood it would appear that his ambition
was to be gratified.
  Rafinesque made two voyages to America, the first
in the year I 802. In the spring of that year, in com-
pany with his younger brother Anthony Augustus,
he landed in Philadelphia, "provided with an
adventure and many letters of introduction." His
father had conducted various mercantile adventures
in that city, and had died there of the yellow fever, in
1793. Rafinesque himself had, at this time, settled
upon the life of a merchant for his future occupation,
and to the duties of his new relation he addressed
himself with energy. But his love for the woods
and fields, the flowers and animals there to be found,
so well developed during the years of his boyhood,
soon enticed him from the counting-room and the
wearisome duties of a clerkship, and he began anew
to cultivate Nature. He had already done very much
among the plants ot Italy and in France, in the
region round about Marseilles, and he was not
entirely unacquainted wiith the Linneaii system of
classification and noiienclataie. On his arrival in
America, from the vei y first the new and rich plant
life had attracted his attention, and the long walks
he took about the suburbs of Philadelphia soon made
him acquainted with its floral wealth. He minutely
described all the plants he found, as he himself
remarks, and made drawings of many of them.
Though bent on fortune, he had time for recreation,
taken in these long scientific walks, and laid the
foundation for his botanical work on American plants
in later years.
  During this stay in Philadelphia, Rafinesque made
the acquaintance of John D. Clifford, afterward a



18

 


BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH



resident of Lexington, Kentucky, which chance
acquaintance, first formed through business relations,
afterward ripened into a warm personal and scien-
tific friendship. This intimacy had powerful influ-
ence in determining the later sequence of events in
the life of our author.
  During the summer of i 802, the yellow fever again
made its appearance in Philadelphia, and Rafinesque,
remembering the sad experience of his father in
1793, abandoned the clerkship and the city for the
summer, and went into the country. Here he de-
voted himself assiduously to the collection and the
study of plants, increasing his knowledge of the
region by extensive collecting trips which took him
far within the borders of the neighboring States.
During this summer he was afforded abundant oppor-
tunity thus to gratify a taste which had been culti-
vated since boyhood; and we are not surprised to find
that, at its conclusion, Rafinesque returned to the
drudgery of business with laggard steps, and that
the irksome quiet of the office could not satisfactorily
replace the joys and pleasures of the woods and fields.
  In i804, Rafinesque resigned his clerkship to his
younger brother, Augustus, and here ended, for a
time, all attempt at a business life. He now devoted
almost all his time to the collection of the rich flora
about Philadelphia and the accessible portions of the
States adjoining, having already concluded to return
to Europe. How extensive these collections were
one will never know; but, if a judgment be based
upon the usual activities of Rafinesque in these mat-
ters, he must have secured large numbers of plants.
Thus passed the period until January, 1805, when
both Rafinesque and his brother, " who would follow



19

 

ICHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS



him," set sail for Sicily. He reached that beautiful
island of the Mediterranean in the following May.
  For the next ten years he resided in Sicily, and,
though these years were characterized by scientific
work accomplished under difficulties and under pres-
sure of business interests which would have made
any other man wealthy, they brought to Rafinesque
little save disappointment. This period of his life
was also marked by some of the harshest experiences
which come to men, and these seem to have had
great weight in determining the course of the mental
life of Rafinesque. It will be sufficient to pass over
this period with the barest mention of the more im-
portant episodes. Among these was the mesalliance
of Rafinesque with one Josephine Vaccaro, an adven-
turess, to whom he considered himself legally
married, though no ritual, either civic or ecclesiastic,
was ever celebrated. There resulted from this union
two children,- a boy who died in i 8 i 5, at the age of
one year, and a daughter who became a ballet dancer
and singer in Palermo. Harassed by business re-
verses, and the mercantile treachery of the Sicilians
with whom he had commercial relations, Rafinesque
finally determined again to visit America and to try
anew the fortunes of the New World. He left his
wife in charge of some of his property, and set sail
with the balance of his possessions in the summer of
I81 5. His experiences on this memorable voyage
read like a romance, ending in shipwreck, at the east-
ern end of Long Island Sound, on Fisher's Island,
involving the total loss of all his years of toil, both
scientific and mercantile. At home, too, fortune
proved fickle; his wife " suddenly married Giovanni
Pizzalour, a comedian," and dissipated the remainder



20

 


BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH



of his possessions. Thus ended the domestic life of
Rafinesque, and thus ended his worldly prospects at
the time of his second visit to America. Few men
are there who would have done better than Rafi-
nesque did under these untoward circumstances.
Though broken in spirit and discouraged, he did not
completely surrender to the odds of the unequal
struggle, but started in anew to woo the coy goddess
men call Fortune; this time, however, with purely
scientific ends in view, and with nothing to hold
him, except painful recollections, to his unfortunate
past. Like a man he faced disaster, and like a man
he rose above adverse surroundings.
  Two or three years passed in the neighborhood of
New York and Philadelphia, mainly devoted to scien-
tific work, and that work primarily botanical, when
Rafinesque conceived the plan of a botanical excur-
sion beyond the Alleghanies into the great valley of
the Ohio. At Louisville, on the Falls of the Ohio,
dwelt one Tarascon, a friend of his youth in Mar-
seilles; and Clifford, whom he had met in Philadel-
phia, was now a resident of Lexington, the Athens
of the West at that time. The fame of Audubon, at
Henderson, had reached the ears of Rafinesque; and
he was not a stranger to that erratic scientific com-
munity which had established itself under Richard
Owen, at New Harmony, on the Wabash. This
latter community was a scientific center in the new
world, and Rafinesque knew some of the individuals
constituting its personnel. All these facts combined
to render the proposed excursion attractive to Rafi-
nesque, and in the year i8 i8 he set out, afoot, on the
long journey.
  The incidents of travel were many, but must be



21

 


ICHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS



passed here in silence. The most important fact of
the expedition was the meeting with John D. Clif-
ford, at Lexington, who was instrumental in procur-
ing the election of Rafinesque to a professorship in
the great Transylvania University, then in the prime
of vigorous growth under the presidency of the
eminent Unitarian divine, Reverend Horace Holly.
This marks the period of the greatest intellectual
and literary attainments of Rafinesque, and gave him
the opportunity he so long had sought. He was in
a veritable new world; the plants and animals had
never been either collected or studied; the hand of
the husbandman had not yet destroyed much of the
primitive forest; untold wealth of natural forms
appealed to Rafinesque, the Nature-lover, as they
have rarely appealed to any man. To-day even, in
the face of the check which specialization furnishes
to scientific investigators, few men could withstand
this lavish display of new and unknown forms!
They were on every hand, in every glade and mead,
every brook and spring, the creeks, the rivers, the
very rocks themselves. Like a school-boy Rafinesque
searched and found, studied, described, drew, sent
abroad, the wonderful forms in which he, almost
alone, now reveled. Here was his one serious mis-
take; but in face of the facts we may well pardon his
widely scattered energy.
  Rafinesque remained nearly eight years at Tran-
sylvania University; these were years of constant toil,
with no one to sympathize with his work, for his
friend Clifford had died in the second year of his
residence at Lexington.  The exposure and hard
work,- for Rafinesque was an incessant worker, tak-
ing little rest,- coupled with that Sicilian " skeleton



22

 

BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH



in the closet," had their influence in undermining
the once strong and vigorous mind; and the close of
the Lexington residence marks the beginning of the
decadence of the mental clearness of Rafinesque,
who, henceforth, met with naught but misfortune.
But the important pages of the Ichtliyologia O/iensis
had been prepared and published, the other numer-
ous biologic papers had found their way to the world
of science, and the Rafinesque of succeeding years
has little or nothing of value to the man of science,
and particularly none to the ichthyologist.
  Rafinesque left Lexington, in anger and haste, in
the year I825, to become again a citizen of Philadel-
phia. After fifteen long years of further unequal
and lonely struggle, after all but complete mental
wreck, after the loss of mercantile emoluments, after
bitter personal animosities with scientific men, after
untoward experiences with the publishers of his
numerous books and pamphlets, Rafinesque surren-
dered to his last visitor, Death. Life closed in a lonely
garret, amid filth and poverty, at Philadelphia, in
the year i840. He lies buried in an unmarked grave
in Ronaldson's Cemetery, Philadelphia, Ninth and
Catherine streets. Peace came at last to him who in
life knew none!



23

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Ichthyologic Work

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Ichthyologic Work



  The papers and books published by Rafinesque
which relate to ichthyologic matters date from the
year 1810. The list is headed by the Caratteri di
alcuni nzovi generi, etc., based upon his studies of the
fishes of the Mediterranean. The field thus entered
was almost unoccupied, and there was little of sys-
tematic history before his time. The elder Pliny,
and a few since his time, had recorded various vaga-
ries and some valuable facts relating to the Mediter-
ranean forms; but systematic ichthyology was unborn
until about the advent of Rafinesque. A single con-
temporary of Rafinesque, A. Risso, of Nice, had
accomplished some systematic work and laid the foun-
dations of the ichthyology of the Mediterranean.
Whether Rafinesque knew of the work of Risso at
the time he published his first paper, is a matter of
difference of opinion. It is, however, quite certain
that, though Rafinesque described fifty-one new
genera and one hundred and fifty-four new species
of Mediterranean fishes in the Caratteri, his work was
 The full title of this famous work of Risso's, for which I am in-
debted to the courtesy of President David Starr Jordan, of Stanford
University, is as follows:
Ichthyologie I de Nice, I ou I Histoire Naturelle des Poissons I du
department des alpes maritimes; I Par A. Risso, I Membre associe
de l'Academie Imp6riale de Turin, Corres- I pondant de la Societ6
philomatique de Paris, etc. -   I Est quadam prodire tenuis, si non
datur ultrb. j Horat. Epist. Lib. I. I - I Avec II planches repr6-
sentant 40 poissons nouveaux. I Paris, I Chez P. Schoell, rue des
Fosses-Saint-Germain- I l'Auxerrois, No. 29. 1 - 1 8ro.

 



I CHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS



less well done than that of Risso who immediately
preceded him. Risso better characterized his new
forms; Rafinesque, on the other hand, had already
lapsed into those careless methods of description
which have caused succeeding naturalists so much
trouble, and have led to so great a confusion in estab-
lishing certain facts in nomenclature. Nevertheless,
Rafinesque had already discovered the inadequacy of
the Cuverian system, and had boldly made the on-
slaught on the ranks of the artificial genera. What-
ever else may be finally decided concerning the work
of Rafinesque on the fishes of the Mediterranean, it
will always be allowed that he shares equally with
Lac6pede, whose classic Histoire naturelZe des Poissons
was not unknown to him, the distinction of breaking
up the old-time heterogeneous assemblages of the
Cuverian system and of thus determining the forma-
tion of generic subdivisions. Indeed, it is quite
probable that Rafinesque saw this necessity before
any other writer, since the subdivisions of Lac6pbde
are not, properly speaking, genera. Rafinesque seg-
regated the groups, suggested their terminology,
named the type, and in a very definite sense became
the father of the new r6gime.
  The Caratteri was followed by several other papers,
noted in the bibliography at the close of this volume,
all of which related, so far as they concerned ichthyo-
logic matters, to the fauna of the Mediterranean.
The institution of additional genera, and the descrip-
tion of new species, occupy most of these papers.
But, in all this work, there are certain facts which
the student must ever carry in mind in seeking to
unravel the maze of the Mediterranean fishes. It
should always be remembered that Rafinesque de-



28

 


ZCHTHYOLOGIC WORK



scribed from the fresh specimen; he was a constant
visitor at the fish-markets of Palermo; he had such
relations with the Sicilian fishermen that they brought
him all the rare and odd forms which fell in their
way. All, or nearly all, of the other earlier descrip-
tions were based upon alcoholic types, and their
diagnoses were made from shrunken and discolored
specimens; add to this the fact that descriptive ter-
minology was yet in its infancy, and that exact
scientific processes of measurement and color schemes
were yet unknown, and the student will find a ready
solution of some of the more important discrepancies
between the work of Rafinesque and that of his
contemporaries.
  It must ever be accounted a most unfortunate cir-
cumstance that Rafinesque did not preserve, in some
manner, the types of his genera. Once the technical
description was completed, with a reference to some
common form, if one chanced to be known, the fish
was thrown away or in some other manner failed of
preservation. Rafinesque had no further use for it!
At the time of his Sicilian residence, he enjoyed the
companionship and advice of the celebrated English
naturalist, Swainson, then living in Sicily, who has
recorded this habit of carelessness, and who persist-
ently yet vainly urged upon Rafinesque the necessity
of preserving his types. It is to Swainson's account
of these days that all modern students are indebted
for exact information concerning the lax methods of
Rafinesque.
  In December, i8I7, Rafinesque published his first
paper on American fishes. It appeared in The Ameri-
can Monthly Magazine and Critical Review, vol. ii., pp.
120, I2i, and was entitled " First Decade of new



29

 



30          ICHTHYOLOGIA OIJENSZS

North-American Fishes."    During the next two
years Rafinesque published nine additional papers,
all but two of which appeared in various American
periodicals of that day. The other two were pub-
lished, one in France and one in England. All of
these papers dealt solely with the fishes of the inte-
rior fresh waters of the United States, and were
mainly concerned with fishes inhabiting the Ohio
River or its tributaries. In a very definite sense,
therefore, prior to the publication of the Ichthyologia
which began in the year i819, Rafinesque laid the
foundations of North American fresh-water ichthyol-
ogy. Some of the genera and species which he then
established in occasional publications are still reqog-
nized by students in this special field; others he
himself changed, or dropped into synonymy, in the
one great work, the Ichthyologia. In this connection
it should be remembered that only a single paper
relating to American fresh-water fishes had as yet
appeared, and that one was written by the celebrated
and early naturalist Le Sueur, who had, in 1817,
published his Notice de queques Poissons dcouverts dans
les lacs du Haut-Canada, durant 1'Jta' de i8i6.
  There are certain facts of a bibliographic charac-
ter which the student may readily glean from the
Ichthyologia itself, and which will be passed over in
this place. Inasmuch as they relate mainly to the
dates and place of original publication they are, in
this connection, unimportant. But the nature of the
collections upon which the volume is based, the
localities at which Rafinesque collected, the fictitious
forms which he described on the authority of others,
the misapprehension of certain structural charac-
ters,- all are important, and must be understood, if

 



ICHTHYOL OGIC WORK                31



one would assign the author of the Zchthyologia to his
proper place in the history of American ichthyology.
So far as it is possible, these facts will now be
presented.
  When Rafinesque entered upon his first western
tour, in the summer of i8i8, he passed from Pitts-
burg, with numerous stops, to the Falls of the Ohio,
at Louisville, by means of an " ark," -a sort of
cabin flatboat common on the Ohio in the early
days.  At each place where stops were made he
embraced the opportunity to acquire information
concerning the fishes, far more numerous at that time
than now, since sewerage and similar decimating
influences were at their minimum. Many of the facts
he gathered were noted in the neatly and regularly
kept note-books, for which Rafinesque was famous.
In addition to the knowledge acquired by observa-
tion, he received many items of information which
were in the nature of pure romances, communicated
by others. These Rafinesque accepted in good faith.
Both these classes of items were afterward embodied
in his published works, with scarcely a hint as to
either their source or their nature. But the first of
the really important personal collections were made by
him at the Falls of the Ohio, a locality abounding in
the smaller varieties, and remarkably rich in indi-
viduals of the genus Etheostomna. One of the most
beautiful species belonging to this genus, the Etheos-
toma fabellata, was described from the Falls, where
it is still very abundant. Later, opportunity was
afforded to Rafinesque to collect in the Kentucky
River, at or near Frankfort; in the Cumberland,
both near Nashville and in that portion of its course
which is in southeastern Kentucky; and in the Green



31

 



ICHTH1YOLOGIA OHI ENSIS



River, not far from Mammoth Cave. He also made
a small collection near Shepardsville, in the Salt
River. At all of these places more or less extensive
observations on the fishes were conducted, always on
the living forms, none of which were preserved after
general description in crude and ill-conceived termi-
nology. Some of his observations were recorded in
proper form; but, later, he supplied from a treacher-
ous memory details which should have found place
in his original notes, taken at the riverside.
  It is very evident, therefore, that the modern stu-
dent who would attempt to understand correctly the
species of Rafinesque must visit, with the original
descriptions at hand, the very streams which the
pioneer ichthyologist visited; he must collect and
observe the fishes in a fresh state, and not after their
coloration has been destroyed and their forms dis-
torted by alcoholic preservation. He must also allow
for the dearth of a special literature, because there
was none in existence. The groupings and descrip-
tions were all, of necessity, at first hand. In a field
so wide, among forms so numerous, with individuals
often very closely related, as is the case in the large
and important genus Notro'pis, before the days when
systematic zoology had been reduced to the strictest
methodical basis, when sexual variations were unsus-
pected, and when nuptial brilliancy was regarded as
a permanent factor, little wonder is it that synonymy
was created, and that the true relations of many of
the fishes actually seen were misconceived.
  There yet remains a most important detail in Rafi-
nesque's work on the fishes of the Ohio which must
have explicit mention. During Rafinesque's cele-
brated visit to Audubon, at Henderson, it appears



32

 



ICHTHYOLOGIC WORK



that, while a guest of the great ornithologist, he was
victimized in a most cruel and reprehensible manner,
incidents occurring which, in after years, were said
to have been but a practical joke. Audubon's facile
pencil and vivid imagination conspired together to
produce drawings of fishes, said to dwell in the Ohio,
which were nothing if not wonderful. With a suave
manner and with an air of absolute truthfulness,
these drawings were shown to Rafinesque, and the
size and beauty of their living prototypes proclaimed.
With a hesitation that is painfully evident, in some
cases at least, Rafinesque yielded to his penchant for
framing new genera and describing new species,-
the bane of later gifted writers, by the way,-and
gave these grotesque forms a name and place in the
ichthyologic system. Time, valuable time, has been
lost in the vain attempt to find and properly place
these mythical forms. That the names thus bestowed
should be dropped goes without saying, but there
are those who, knowing the facts in these cases,
would yet insist upon relegating all the names pro-
posed by Rafinesque to the limbo of synonymy. It
would be better to drop these names without preju-
dice; following this, the strict rules of priority, as
enforced by the fair-minded man of science, will
eventually determine the place of the remainder.
  There have been two almost insuperable difficul-
ties encountered in attempting to correlate Rafi-
nesque's species with those recognized at the present
The fishes which Rafinesque thus described on the authority of
Audubon are the following: Perca nzgrofunctata, Atlocentrus
calliops, Pogostoma leucops, Catostomus anisopturus, Catostomus
nmger, Catostomus fasciolaris, Catostomus () megastomus, Pylo-
dictis hzmosus, Accipenser macrostomus, Dinectes truncatus.



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ZCHTHYOLOGIA OHIENSIS



time. The first of these has been mentioned in the
cases of the mythical species established " on the
authority of Mr. Audubon." The second consists in
the complete absence of authentic specimens. None
of the types exist. It has remained, therefore, for
the student to attempt to correlate the descriptions
of Rafinesque with those of later writers, some of
whom were in utter ignorance of his work, not to say
species, and whose later determinations and descrip-
tions are often based upon alcoholic materials.
  The limits within which Rafinesque collected
fresh-water fishes in the Ohio valley have been indi-
cated above.  It should be a comparatively easy
matter to collect in the streams which furnished the
pioneer ichthyologist his data; but, so far as the
writer is informed, a single student only, President
David Starr Jordan, has sought thus to correlate the
various descriptions, and thus to determine the synon-
ymy. It is also very evident that Rafinesque did not
regard variations in coloration and minor characters
as such, but magnified them into facts having specific
values, so far as species go. This treatment is con-
sonant with that which he has accorded to numerous
plants, and which is in line with his love for genus
and species making. In the presence of a rich fauna,
and in the absence of a distinctive literature, this
may be condoned, though one must always regret
that Rafinesque was not far more conservative.
  But that is now a matter of minor consideration.
The important facts are, that fishes were collected
by Rafinesque and described by him for the first
time; moreover, they came from the Ohio and its
tributaries; some of them are recorded as being rare,
others are declared to be abundant. What were



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ICHTHYOLOGIC WORK



these fishes That is the one question which, for
some species, yet awaits solution. A goodly number
have been finally fixed upon, though space here
forbids listing the Rafinesquian genera and species
together with their modern nomenclatural identities.
So far as this