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Dr. JAMES G. COOPER.

A SKETCH. [By, President of the Cooper Ornithological Club.]

T is proper, and in accordance with the wish of the Club, that the initial number of the should contain a brief sketch of the life of him, in whose honor our Club is named,—Dr. James G. Cooper.

The fact that Dr. Cooper, though very feeble, is yet alive, precludes us front entering upon any detailed view of his private life, even though it be that phase with which his friends most delight. We must, therefore, confine ourselves to the scientific aspect of his life, as it is in this relation that he is best known to thousands who have never met him, and who will be pained to learn that it is almost impossible for hint to receive visitors, as it is difficult and painful for him to speak.

When it became necessary for us to visit him to verify certain portions of this sketch, we noticed his evident pleasure when he learned that the Club intended to publish its own, and he expressed the wish to do all that he could to further its interests. To us this meeting was at once a promise and a benediction. For many years he had been to us a friend and a guide, and necessarily our mind reverted to the time when we learned of bird-life at his feet. As we looked on his kindly face and listened to the almost inarticulate words, in memory we traveled backward to the time of our first lesson in bird-life; he sitting on a rock in the shadow of the trees, and the student watching the birds which he noted as they flew about us or jumped from stone to stone, making the air vibrate with their music.

Eighteen years ago! What a vista of time is here unrolled. What changes this period has wrought, yet in memory he is again giving his first field lesson, taking the Rock Wren for an object study as it sits on a huge blue-gray rock singing to us its. song of welcome. Here he talked to us of Nature in all of her varied forms; told of the birds, their songs, their flights, plumage and their home-life; of their loves and hates, joys and sorrows! All of this was told in common language, without scientific nomenclature, and thus we saw Nature and her works through the eyes of one who loved and had long questioned and learned many of her secrets, until the setting sun found us yet worshiping in Nature's temple, and the student gaining his first glimpse into that grand arena. This was our teacher's manner; thus he gathered around him the young ornithologists and in the field taught them the lessons of bird-life, and it was from the incentives of these field studies that our Club was formed, and in his honor named, and at the Club meeting held December 5, 1896, he was by unanimous vote placed on our roll as an Honorary Life Member.

The Secretary of the Club, Mr. C. Barlow, fully expressed the sentiments of all when, in advising Dr. Cooper of the action, he wrote: "The Club which was named in your honor was organized June 22, 1893. *** As an organization of comparatively young workers, we all feel indebted to yourself and the few remaining veteran ornithologists for the excellent and valuable material which you have prepared in the years past."

James G. Cooper was born June 19, 1830, in New York, being the eldest of a family of six children. In the spring of 1837, his father, Wil-