Vol. XIXl ,. . , ,. 



,go2 J Aotes afia Nevjs. A.2I 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Dr. James G. Cooper, a Corresponding Member of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, died at Hajvvards, Alameda Count}', California, 

 Julji 19. 1902, at the age of 72 years. He was born in New York City, 

 June 19, 1830, and was the oldest of six children. His grandfather, James 

 Cooper, an English merchant, settled in New York soon after the close 

 of the Revolution, where he died in 1801, after having accumulated a 

 comfortable fortune. His father, William Cooper, was born in 1798; he 

 early decided to devote himself to the study of natural history, and at the 

 age of nineteen became one of the founders of the Lyceum of Natural 

 History of New York, now the New York Academy of Sciences ; in 1821 

 he sailed for Europe, to continue his studies in zoology, where he attended 

 the lectures of Cuvier in Paris, and was elected the first American member 

 of the London Zoological Society. He was later secretary of the New 

 York Lyceum, and was prominently identified with the notable group of 

 naturalists who soon made the Lyceum prominent among the scientific 

 institutions of America. He was the friend of Audubon and Nuttall, and 

 a correspondent and co-worker of Lucian Bonaparte, editing the last two 

 volumes of his 'American Ornithology.' Bonaparte, in appreciation of 

 his friendship and assistance, named for him the hawk now known as 

 Acciptter cooperi, described from specimens taken by Cooper in Hudson 

 County, N. Y. He also collected the type and only known specimen of 

 the sandpiper, Trtnga cooperi, named in his honor by Baird. 



Thus James G. Cooper, the subject of the present sketch, was reared and 

 educated under surroundings especially favorable for the development of 

 his inherited scientific tendencies. In 185 1 he was graduated from the 

 New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, and spent the following 

 two years in the city hospitals. In 1853 he was appointed surgeon to the 

 northern division of the Pacific Railroad Survey, under the direction of 

 Brevet Captain George B. McClelland, at the instigation of Professor 

 Baird. After serving in the field as surgeon and naturalist for about one 

 j-ear, he retin-ned to Washington to prepare his report. He was soon 

 forced, however, by poor health to seek the more favorable climate of the 

 Pacific coast, whei^e he devoted three years to making collections, most of 

 the time at his own expense, during which period he not only continued 

 his work in the Northwest, but collected also in southern California, and 

 made a trip of three months southward as far as Panama. In 1857 he 

 was appointed surgeon to the expedition under Lieut. Mullan to survey a 

 Wagon Road from Fort Kearney to the Pacific, but the expedition was 

 abandoned when it had reached the Rocky Mountains in Montana, and 

 Dr. Cooper then went on a collecting trip to the Mojave Desert. In 1S60 

 he was again a contract surgeon, and was detailed to accompany troops 

 across the continent from New York to Fort Columbus, Department of 

 Oregon. During the following three years he Avas engaged in collecting 



