Henry Christopher McCook (July 3, 1837 – 1911) was an American Presbyterian clergyman, naturalist, and prolific author on religion, history, and nature. He was a member of the celebrated Fighting McCooks, a family of Ohio military officers and volunteers during the American Civil War.
He spent his summers studying the behavior of ants and spiders. He published his observations and discoveries in a number of journals and books, as well as in a series of well-received illustrated children's books that explained the insects characteristics and traits in language and drawings for young minds. Many of McCook's books used illustrations drawn by Daniel Carter Beard, the founder of the Boy Scouts of America.
In the summer of 1877, he travelled to Texas to study agricultural ants. Two years later, McCook wrote The Natural History of the Agricultural Ant of Texas. In 1889–93, he published his most ambitious work, American Spiders and Their Spinning Work, in three illustrated volumes. He also wrote a book on his ancestors in the Whiskey Rebellion, and delivered a number of papers on Civil War history at meetings of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States veterans organization.
Elizabeth Fearne Bonsall, The labyrinth spider's cocoon string, suspended within the maze above her leaf roofed tent, for Henry Christopher McCook's American Spiders and Their Spinning Work, 1893
Object and Outline Teaching (1871)
The Last Year of Christ's Ministry (1871)
The Last Days of Jesus (1872)
The Tercentenary Book (1873)
Mound-Making Ants of the Alleghenies, Their Architecture and Habits (1877)
The Natural History of the Agricultural Ant of Texas (1879)
Historic Ecclesiastical Emblems of Pan-Presbyterianism (1880)
Honey and Occident Ants (1882)
Tenants of an Old Farm: Leaves From the Note-book of a Naturalist (1884)
The Women Friends of Jesus (1884)
The Gospel in Nature (1887)
American Spiders and Their Spinning Work (1893)
Old Farm Fairies: A Summer Campaign Against King Cobweaver's Pixies (1895)
