io6 
THE CONDOR 
1 Vol. IV 
A Letter from Dr. Coues to Dr. Cooper. 
T he following letter, contributed 
by Mr. Emerson, is of interest just 
now, in connection with the life of 
Dr. Cooper. We have here a glimpse 
into the past, showing us at once the 
friendship existing between Dr. Cooper 
and Dr. Coues, and the esteem in which 
Cassin was held by his fellow workers. 
Fort Macon, North Carolina. 
February 21, i86g. 
My Dear Cooper: 
I have not heard from you for so 
long, that I don’t recollect which one of 
us owes the other a letter; but that’s no 
great matter after all! I have received 
the two copies of your paper so kindly 
sent, and read them with unusual inter- 
est and profit. You quote me, I notice, 
very extensively. I have not the pa- 
pers by me or I should like to make a 
few notes that struck me on first ’ peru- 
sal. I consider the paper a highly in- 
teresting and very valuable one. That 
one now printing in the “Naturalist” 
will also be of great practical service. 
Please let me have a copy of all that 
you write. I understand that your 
large work will be out before long. I 
think I have seen it announced, in print, 
in some publisher’s prospectus, but can 
not recall definitely. I look for it with 
eager interest. I have sent you, I think, 
all the papers that I have published 
since my “Prodrome,” directing them 
for want of more definite address to 
care of the S. F. Nat. Hist. Soc. Have 
you received them? A short one, “List 
of Birds Collected in Arizona by Dr. 
Ed. Palmer,” bears directly upon your 
work. He got on the Gila desert 3 
species not previously attributed to the 
Territory; and several kinds of eggs not 
before known to the ornithologists. 
My large work still remains in MSS; 
but is about ready for the press. I have 
about 2500 pages of MSS. Yours and 
mine together will, I think, about use 
up the subject. Yours has the great 
desideratum of mine — illustrations. I 
know these will be great; have seen 
the proofs of a great many of them, and 
they are first rate. Best things out 
since Cassin’s and the Pac. R. R. Re- 
ports!! I deeply regret that my book 
can boast of nothing of the sort; but I 
have no means of procuring any such 
desirable embellishments. 
After my long stay at Columbia, over 
2)4 years, I am at lenyth moved. Fort 
Macon is on one of the long islands off 
the coast of North Carolina just oppo- 
site Beaufort. I did comparatively lit- 
tle at Columbia in the bird line, my po- 
sition being a very onerous one as 
regarding official duties. I only man- 
aged to collect data for a Synopsis of 
the Birds of the State (a copy of which 
I sent you). Although the birds are of 
course well known in the general run, 
I thought that a new carefully pre- 
pared list might find an acceptable 
place in our chronicles. I have as much 
time here at my disposal as you seem 
to have at drum barracks, and I hope 
to put it to good account in the line of 
ornithological studies. I have never 
before lived on the South x\tlantic sea- 
board. 
Of course you heard the sad, sad 
news that John Cassin’s labors are end- 
ed. The loss to vScience none of us can 
measure; nor can those privileged to 
call him friend adequately express the 
depth of that bereavement. And many 
as are our American ornithologists — 
high as some stand in American orni- 
thology — there is none left in all our 
land who can lift up the mantle that 
has fallen from his shoulders. His 
good work is accompli.shed, and he has 
gone to reap the rich reward of a life 
nobly spent in the survey of Nature’s 
beauties, in drinking from the peren- 
nial fountain of Nature’s truths. Since 
Audubon passed away from the scene 
of his usefulness, death has struck no 
such cruel blow to our beloved .science. 
As Dr. Brewer has said to me, “which 
one of our younger ornithologists will 
