Vol. XVIII 

 1901 



J Elliot, /« Memoriam : Elliott Coues. 



A. B. in i86r, Honorary M. A. in 1862, became a Medical Cadet 

 in 1862, M. D. in 1863 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 

 could receive his commission and that year he passed at Mount 

 Pleasant Hospital near Washington. For seventeen years 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 westward from the Lake of the Woods. In 

 these great expeditions he served as surgeon 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 distasteful, and 

 when he was detached from the surveying expeditions and 

 ordered back to his first station at Fort Whipple, Arizona, he 

 endeavored to obtain a different 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. 



Although he was a writer on many and various subjects, his 

 first scientific work was done in ornithology, and as early as 

 1 86 1, 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 Tringai of North x'^merica.' In 

 his scientific studies Coues was fortunate in having for his men- 

 tor the late Professor Baird and between them the strongest 



