William Couper (naturalist)
| William Couper | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Quebec City, Ottawa, Montreal, New York City |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields | Natural history |
| Known for | Entomological work, magazine editor |
| Influences | Henry Holmes Croft |
| Influenced | Léon Abel Provancher, Charles-Eusèbe Dionne |
| Author abbrev. (zoology) | Couper |
William Couper (fl. 1850s–1886) was an American entomologist and naturalist who came to prominence during the later half of the 19th century in Canada. The better known period of his life spans from the 1850s to 1886.
Effectively nothing is known of Couper's early life, although it is speculated that he was born in Sheldon, Vermont. He came to Canada and established himself in Toronto likely around 1843 (he later noted having lived there for 17 years, and left the city in 1860). A conference by Henry Holmes Croft, a University College teacher, spurred him into collecting his first specimens. A few years later his collections of insects and various related structures (nests, cocoons, galleries...) were noticed and praised in The Canadian Journal, an interest he would maintain (1863 he noted these collections to amount to 6 000 specimens). These collections were prized in 1856. Although entomology and ornithology (particularly the former) were his main interests, he was, like most scientists of the time, very versatile. In addition to working as a typographer, he owned a small shop where he sold specimens and taxidermy material. His major publication was a description of 150 Canadian Coleoptera species.
Sometime around 1860 he moved to Quebec City. There he initiated Léon Abel Provancher to entomology, and probably taught taxidermy to Charles-Eusèbe Dionne. In 1863, he was involved with the foundation of the Entomological Society of Canada, and a few years later, the affiliated society in Quebec, in which Provancher, Louis-Ovide Brunet and George John Bowles were involved, amongst others. That branch, however, only. lasted a few years. While residing there, he traveled to Côte-Nord and made the first detailed description of the region. Those notes later served a number of other scientists. He also described 15 new species of Coleoptera, a number of which are still valid. In 1867, Henry J. Morgan called him one of the first Canadian entomologists in his Bibliotheca Canadensis. Before moving to Montreal in 1870, he spent a year (or three) in Ottawa, what exactly he did is not known (possibly he studied spiders), but he wrote several short papers in The Canadian Entomologist during that period.
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