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The old traveller, Rafinesque, tells us that when he was a boy he read the voyages of Captain Cook, Le Vaillant, Pallas, and Bougainville, and "my soul was fired to be a great traveller like them, and so I became such," he adds shortly.
Rafinesque had a hope that Audubon might buy some of his colored drawings; but when he saw the wonderful pictures which Audubon had made, he acknowledged that his own were inferior a sore confession for Rafinesque, who was an egotist of the first water.
He writes in the same strain and for the same object to Professor Yandell, of Kentucky, adding: "In this respect the State of Kentucky is one of the most important of the Union, not only on account of the many rivers which pass through its territory, but also because it is one of the few States the fishes of which have been described by former observers, especially by Rafinesque in his "Ichthyologia Ohioensis," so that a special knowledge of all his original types is a matter of primary importance for any one who would compare the fishes of the different rivers of the West. . .Do you know whether there is anything left of Rafinesque's collection of fishes in Lexington, and if so, whether the specimens are labeled, as it would be very important to identify his species from his own collection and his own labels?
Work but half done is no longer permissible in our days. . .In this matter I think there is a justice due to Rafinesque. However poor his descriptions, he nevertheless first recognized the necessity of multiplying genera in ichthyology, and that at a time when the thing was far more difficult than now.
The sepulchral roars of passing steamers echo along the wooded shore, the night wind rustles the tree-tops, Owensboro dogs are much awake, and the electric lamps of the city throw upon our canvas screen the fantastic shadows of leaves and dancing boughs. Fishermen's tales Skiff nomenclature Green River Evansville Henderson Audubon and Rafinesque Floating trade The Wabash.
"When you stop reading novels and begin to read history, Miss Sylvia, here is the most remarkable history of Kentucky that was ever written or ever will be. It is by my father's old teacher of natural history in Transylvania University, Professor Rafinesque, who also had a wonderful botanical garden on this side of the town; perhaps the first ever seen in this country."
In 1818, the botanist Rafinesque, on the first of his several tramps down the Ohio valley, he had a favorite saying, that the only way for a botanist to travel, was to walk, stopped over at Henderson to visit this crazy fellow of whom he had heard.
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