IN MEMORIAM: ELLIOTT COUES. 



Born Qth September, 1842. — Died 25th December, 1899. 



IN the life of every nation, society, or individual, no matter how peaceful, pros- 

 perous, or happy the record of the past may have been, no matter how encour- 

 aging and bright the future may be for further advancement, increased progress 

 and greater achievements in the path that always leads onward and upward, 

 toward the ultimate fulfilment of the highest destiny that may be attained, in the 

 varying, shifting career that all must follow while accomplishing the pilgrimage of 

 earth, yet in the experience of all, even amidst the rush of a restless activity, 

 there comes a time to mourn. A time when the daily duties are temporarily neg- 

 lected or wholly laid aside, when the engrossing pursuits that occupy the thoughts 

 and call for the utmost energies of man's nature cease for the moment to interest 

 the mind, when the smile vanishes and joyous laughter no longer cheers the heart, 

 when the voice sinks to a whisper low and soft, as the sense of some irreparable 

 loss comes with stunning force to overwhelm the soul. To this Society, to all its 

 individual members, and to some of us in a peculiar and intimate relationship sucli 

 a time has surely come, for as we are gathered here to-day, one engaging presence, 

 one vitalizing force, one attractive personality, one brilliant mind is no longer in 

 our midst, to grace, strengthen, and assist us in our deliberations, and in the 

 accomplishment of duties that must be met. "Who shall measure the extent of the 

 loss sustained by various branches of scientific and historical research, by this and 

 kindred societies, by those of us who have parted from an intimate friend and 

 colleague of many vanished years, as well as the ^^ounger men just entering upon 

 tlie scientific field, in the recent death of our former President and late colleague, 

 Elliott Coues? No one occupied a more prominent position in our midst tiian he, 

 and no one held it by a stronger claim, founded on exceptional ability, in brilliant 

 work successfully accomplished. 



On September 9th, 1842, in the town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Elliott 

 Coues was born, and as soon as he could exhiljit a preference for any object, his 

 taste for ornithology was manifested, and even when only able to toddle about the 

 nursery, a poster of one of the old-style menageries rendered him oblivious to all 

 other attractions and no book nor story interested him unless animals were their 

 subjects. So early did the tastes and preferences that were to be the chief con- 

 trolling influences of his life declare themselves. When he was eleven years of age 

 his father, Samuel P^lliott Coues, removed to Washington, in which city our late 

 colleague was destined to pass a large part of his life, and where some of his most 



^ An address delivered at the Eighteenth Congress of the American Ornithologists' Union, 

 Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 13, 1900. 



