Page:Condor4(5).djvu/3

September, 19o2. I TIlE which finally went alive to England. I had many hunts for quadrupeds and preserved some up tothe size of gray and fox squirrels, besides keeping red and flying squirrels, a racoon, oppossum, and other animals as pets, which at- tracted much interest among visitors. I had a boy's mania for hunting, and al- tho I could only get small animals and birds, I spent many a day in shooting, no doubt with impoverishment to phys- ical health. I would wade thru snow knee-deep for miles with poor results as to game, but thought if I ever went into a wild country the hunter's life would be my choice. Why man could not live happy on the natural products of the forests and streams wa a pro- blem I expected to solve in the future. About this time Tanner's 'Thirty'Years Among the Indians of Canada' showed me much of the difficulties in the way of such a mode of existence." In this we have a little retrospect in- to the early life of Dr. Cooper from his own pen. The tendencies thus early manifested were fostered by his father, to whom Dr. Cooper owed his prepara- tion for his later work in life, and it was at the home of William Cooper that such men as Samuel L. Mitchell, M.D., Nathaniel Paulding, poet, Dr. John Torrey, the botanist, Prof. Eaton, and Lucien Bonaparte were wont to meet. It is uot difficult to see how these men CONDOR lO3 may all have exerted a profound influ- ence on the mind of the young natural- ist. At the age of twentl-eight, Dr. Cooper became a member of the New York Lyceum, now the New York Academy of Sciences, his father, at the age of nineteen, having been one of the founders. Dr. Cooper was one of the early members of the California Acad- emy of Sciences, holding for several years the office of vice-president and for some years being curator of the sec- tion of palaeontology, which he had given much time to build up. Ilis last actual work was the compiling of a Cat- alog of California Fossils, issued as Bul- letin No. 4 by the California State Min- ing Bureau, Sept. ?894, Parts II, III, IV and V. Dr. Cooper is the last of that circle of distinguished naturalists, who had been the foremost zoologists and botanists in his early days. Such men as Asa Gray, Baird, LeConte, Hayden, Meek, George Gibbs, Torrey, Warren and Dr. Suckley were his colaborers. To the memory of Dr. Cooper we can have no better mon- ument than the valuable researches which he carried on for over forty years of his life, consisting of some seventy- five papers on the birds, shells, fossils, geology, forests and flora of the Pacific Coast. W. OTTO EMERSON, Ilaywards, California. The Ornithological Writings of Dr. J. G. Cooper. BY JOSEPH GRINNELL. N the present paper I have listed all the oruithological writings of the late Dr. Cooper known to me. These number twenty-six. It will be noted that the majority were printed between 586o and ?88o. While the number of Cooper's titles was not great, his articles thus appeared at a time when much less was written on birds than now, and when much of the subject-matter we might now regard as commonplace was new information altogether. As all but two of his publications pertained at least in part to the birds of California we of the Cooper Ornithological Club owe much to Dr. Cooper as being a pioneer in our line of study. Perhaps his best known work is his" Ornithology of California" which is a desideratum of every working bird-student. Aside from his signed articles, Cooper fur- nished material, in the way of speci-