72 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
led him to defer publishing his knowledge from year to year 
until now, unfortunately, his great experience and ripe knowledge 
has passed away with him; thus his assiduous labours have borne 
but little fruit to be enjoyed by coming generations of students 
in his favourite subjects. It was, however, in the field that he 
was the most enjoyable companion, his never tiring recital of his 
varied entomological observations rendering lively many a blank 
collecting day. 
Probably the work by which he was best known was a paper 
read at a meeting of the Northern Entomological Society, 
December 26th, 1857, upon the classification of insects, which at 
the time caused some sensation, and which may be found printed 
in ‘ The Zoologist,’ vol. xvi., p. 5951; and it is only three months 
ago since he read another paper on the same subject before the 
Entomological Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. In this 
latter paper he acknowledges certain modifications, but in prin- 
ciple he still adhered to his system published a quarter of a 
century ago. ‘The last sentence of his last paper is so charac- 
teristic of the man that we give it, verbatim, for the benefit of our 
readers :—‘‘ I have carried out the details in the arrangement of 
my own collection chiefly in the orders Hymenoptera, Diptera, 
and Hemiptera, but these details will require a thorough revision, 
and this cannot be done properly without assistance.” Latterly 
he had published in the Proceedings of the same Society a 
Catalogue of the Hymenoptera and Diptera of Lancashire and 
Cheshire. 
The first of the numerous additions to the British fauna made 
by the late Mr. Cooke was Nyssia zonaria, now upwards of forty 
years ago. 
Benjamin Cooke, brother of our correspondent Myr. Nicholas 
Cooke, was son of the late Isaac Cooke, founder of one of the 
large and well-known firms of cotton brokers in Liverpool, the 
former being born 16th September, 1816. 
I am indebted for the material of this obituary notice to my 
friends Messrs. 8. J. Capper and C. 8. Gregson, of Liverpool. 
hae Se Cal 
