BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Arvicoline genera." (" Monograph of North 

 American Rodentia," page 228.) 



It is no wonder that Mr. Cooper, with a 

 cautious desire for accuracy, left undescribed 

 such imperfect and puzzling specimens in 

 hope of some day obtaining means for their 

 proper comparison and identification. 



The other species was a bird of the sand- 

 piper family, shot May 24, 1833, at Raynor 

 South, Long Island, and also kept, in hope of 

 obtaining more before describing- it as a new 

 species of that very difficult and obscurely de- 

 termined group. But no second specimen 

 has ever been obtained, and now, after more 

 than twenty years' test, the name of Tringa 

 Cooperi, Baird, seems likely to remain, as 

 given to it in the Pacific R. R. Report on 

 Birds, page 716, and in Baird's Birds of 

 North America. 



In disposition Mr. Cooper was retiring and 

 free from personal ambitions, perhaps too 

 apt to give way to the desires and interests 

 of others, as he had never been trained in 

 the " struggle for existence," or else, allowing 

 for his delicacy of constitution, his early 



