xxxvi IN MEMORIAM: ELLIOTT COUES. 



Important works were to be written. For a time he attended Gonzaga College, a 

 Jesuit Institution, and where, to one of his ardent temperament, the gorgeous 

 ritual of the Romish church would be apt to make a deep impression ; but his was 

 to be an energetic life that demanded a wide field for its activity, and could not be 

 pent amid cloistered shades or cathedral aisles. In his early days he was rather 

 inclined to neglect the classics, replying once to a remonstrance of his father, " I 

 only want just enough of these things to facilitate my other work," but later he 

 appreciated the importance of a thorough knowledge of the ancient tongues and 

 they had no more earnest advocate than himself. At the age of seventeen he 

 entered Columbia College, now Columbian University, took his degree of A.B. in 

 1861, Honorary M.A. in 1862, became a Medical Cadet in 1862, M.D. in 18G3 and 

 Acting Assistant Surgeon, United States Army, in the same year, and Assistant 

 Surgeon in 1864. When he passed his examination for the United States Army 

 medical corps, he was obliged to tell them he was not of age, and he was appointed 

 a volunteer surgeon for one year before he conld receive his commission, and that 

 year he passed at Mount Pleasant Hospital near AYashington. For seventeen 

 3^ears he continued in the service of the United States, and was made a brevet 

 Captain, resigning in 1881 in order to devote himself entirely to his scientific and 

 literary pursuits. 



During his army life he was stationed at various posts, mostly those situated in 

 the western part of the United States, and he was also attached to some of the 

 most important Government Surveys of the Territories and little known parts of 

 our country, such as the one under the command of Dr. F. V. Hayden, and that of 

 the Northern Boundary Commission which surveyed the forty-ninth parallel west- 

 ward from the Lake of the Woods. In these great expeditious he served as sur- 

 geon and naturalist, and gained in the field that intimate knowledge of our birds 

 and mammals which was to make him in the near future one of the most illustrious 

 naturalists of our country and of our time. He had now become so absorbed in 

 his scientific pursuits that the monotonous routine of an army post was most dis- 

 tasteful, and when he was detached from the surveying expeditions and ordered 

 back to his first station at Fort AVhipple, Arizona, he endeavored to obtain a dif- 

 ferent assignment, one more congenial to him and better adapted for his scientific 

 work, and when this proved impossible he resigned from the army and took up 

 his abode in Washington, where he resided until his .death. 



Altliough he was a writer on many and various subjects, his first scientific work 

 was done in ornithology, and as early as 1861, when he was but nineteen years of 

 age, he made his debut as an author in a well-conceived and executed paper, that 

 would have been highly creditable to a far more experienced hand, entitled " A 

 Monograph of the Triugie of North America." In his scientific studies Coues was 

 fortunate in having for his mentor the late Professor Baird, and between them the 

 strongest friendship existed and which only terminated with the death of the 

 senior naturalist. From this period Coues's contributions to literary, scieutific, and 

 philosophic subjects never ceased, for his energies were unlimited and he became 

 one of the most prolific writers of our day. In 1869 he was elected Professor of 

 Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in Norwich University, Vermont, but the duties 



