THE NAUTILUS. 



Vox,. XVI. NOVEMBER, 19O2. No. 7. 



DR. JAMES G. COOPER. 



On the nineteenth of July, Dr. Cooper, a man prominent in the 

 scientific history of Western America, died at his home in Haywards, 

 California. For nearly fifty years he labored with zeal and earnest- 

 ness for the advancement of zoological knowledge. Trained as a 

 physician and for years engaged in the practice of his profession, he 

 yet found time for work of lasting value in the domain of nature- 

 study. He suffered from ill health for many years, yet as one of the 

 pioneers in the western field, his name will be held in grateful re- 

 membrance for what he has done in zoological science. 



His father, William Cooper, one of the founders of the Lyceum 

 of Natural History, now the New York Academy of Sciences, was 

 eminent as a naturalist. From him Dr. Cooper received the early 

 training which in large measure prepared him for his later career. 

 Born in New York, June 19, 1830, James commenced his school life 

 at the age of ten years, while living with his family on a farm near 

 Hoboken, N. J. On his way to school it was his delight to collect 

 birds or shells or anything else in animate nature which he might 

 find, thus showing those traits which were afterward a dominating 

 factor in his life work. Later he studied medicine, and received his 

 degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York in 

 1851. After two years spent in the city hospitals, he was appointed 

 physician on a government survey for a railroad between St. Paul 

 and Puget Sound. A part of his duty was to make zoological and 

 botanical collections, and in this way he began the observations and 

 discoveries for which the scientific world is permanently indebted to 

 him. During the succeeding years he spent most of his time in col- 



