Ohituury. 403 



the 25th December^ 1899, of Dr. Elliott Coues, in his fifty- 

 eighth year. Although born at Portsmouth, New Hamp- 

 shire, on September 9th, 1812, Coues was educated chiefly 

 at Washington, at the Jesuit Seminary now known as Gon- 

 zaga College ; he graduated at the Colnmbian University ; 

 and served as Assistant-Surgeon in the United States Army 

 from 1864) to 1878, when he received the special appoint- 

 ment of surgeon and naturalist to the United States Noi'thern 

 Boundary Commission, which surveyed the line of the 49th 

 parallel from Lake of the Woods westward to the Rocky 

 Mountains. Of the subsequent six years a portion was 

 passed in Washington, in the preparation of a report on the 

 above Survey ; after which he was sent to Arizona as 

 secretary and naturalist of the U.S. Geological and Geo- 

 graphical Survey of the Territories. Incidentally it may 

 now be mentioned that Coues had been elected Professor of 

 Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Norwich University, 

 Vermont, in 1869, and this training was of great use to him 

 in the preparation of his numerous and important works on 

 zoology ; he also held the Chair of Anatomy at the National 

 Medical College in Washington from 1877 to 1886. A 

 perfect glutton for work, Coues never neglected an oppor- 

 tunity offered by his service on the coast or on the frontier ; 

 and after making every allowance for " devilling " with regard 

 to the references in such books as ' The Birds of the North- 

 West ' and the various instalments of ' The Bibliography of 

 Ornithology/ even then his personal work must liave been 

 prodigious. Every successive edition of his ' Key to North- 

 American Birds' marked epochs in oruitliological progress, 

 while the mere list of his contributions to science would fill 

 at least a couple of our pages. And, be it remarked, all this 

 work was solid, and not vamped up to swell the total, as is 

 too often the case at the present day. There is no need for 

 enumeration of it in * The Ibis,^ inasmuch as the share which 

 Coues took in the advancement of ornithology is almost as 

 well known in Great Britain as in America, and the regret 

 felt here for the loss of a man of such genius is nearly equal 

 to that which is experienced by his own countrymen. 



