Though he wrote some professional 

 articles, during his hospital experience, 

 Dr. Coues seems never to have been 

 much interested in the practice of 

 medicine and surgery. After about 

 ten years of ordinary military ser- 

 vice as post surgeon in various places 

 he was, in 1873, appointed naturalist of 

 the U. S. northern boundary commis- 

 sion, which surveyed the line along the 

 forty- ninth parallel from the Lake of 

 the Woods to the Rocky mountains. 

 In 1874 he returned to Washington to 

 prepare the scientific report of his ope- 

 rations. He edited all the publications 

 of the United States geological and 

 geographical survey of the territories 

 from 1876 to 1880 and contributed 

 several volumes to the reports of the 

 survey, notably his "Birds of the North- 

 west," "Fur Bearing Animals," "Birds 

 of the Colorado Valley," and several 

 installments of a universal Bibliogra- 

 phy of Ornithology. The latter work 

 attracted especial attention in Europe, 

 and Dr. Coues was signally compli- 

 mented by an invitation, signed by 

 Darwin, Huxley, Flower, Newton, 

 Sclater, and about forty other leading 

 British scientists to take up his resi- 

 dence in London and identify himself 

 with the British Museum. 



Dr. Coues also projected and had 

 well under way a " History of North 

 American Mammals," which was or- 

 dered to be printed by act of Congress 

 when suddenly, at the very height of 

 his scientific researches and literary 

 labors, he was ordered by the war de- 

 partment to routine medical duty on 

 the frontier. He obeyed the order and 

 proceeded to Arizona, but found it, of 

 course, impossible to resume a life he 

 had long since outgrown. His indig- 

 nant protests being of no avail, he re- 

 turned to Washington and promptly 

 tendered his resignation from the army 

 in order to continue his scientific career 

 unhampered by red tape. 



As an author he is chiefly known 

 by his numerous works on ornithol- 

 ogy, mammalogy, herpetology, biblio- 

 graphy, lexicography, comparative 

 anatomy, natural philosophy, and 

 psychical research. He was one of the 

 author? of the Century Dictionary of 

 the English Language, in seven years 



contributing 40,000 words and defini- 

 tions in general biology, comparative 

 anatomy, and all branches of zoology. 

 During the last few years he contrib- 

 uted several volumes on western his- 

 tory, in all twelve volumes, and by 

 study and research was enabled to cor- 

 rect many errors. In 1877 he received 

 the highest technical honor to be at- 

 tained by an American scientist in his 

 election to the Academy of National 

 Science and was for some years the 

 youngest academician. The same year 

 saw his election to the chair of anat- 

 omy of the National Medical College 

 in Washington, where he had graduated 

 in '63. He then entered upon a pro- 

 fessorship and lectured upon his favor- 

 ite branch of the medical sciences for 

 ten years. He appears to have been 

 the first in Washington to teach human 

 anatomy upon the broadest basis of 

 morphology and upon the principle of 

 evolution. Nearly all his life Dr. Coues 

 has been a collaborator of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution of Washington, his 

 name being most frequently mentioned 

 in that connection. Many of the num- 

 berless specimens of natural history he 

 presented to the United States govern- 

 ment were found new to science and 

 several have been named in compli- 

 ment to their .discoverer. 



At the height of his intellectual ac- 

 tivity in physical science the spiritual 

 side of Dr. Coues' nature was awak- 

 ened. He became interested in the 

 phenomena of spiritualism, as well as 

 in the speculations of theosophy. Be- 

 longing distinctively to the material- 

 istic school of thought and skeptical 

 to the last degree by his whole train- 

 ing and turn of mind, he nevertheless 

 began to feel the inadequacy of formal 

 orthodox science to deal with the 

 deeper problems of human life and 

 destiny. 



Convinced of the soundness of the 

 main principles of evolution, as held 

 by his peers in science, he wondered 

 whether these might not be equally 

 applicable to psychical research, and 

 hence took up the theory of evolution 

 at the point where Darwin left it, pro- 

 posing to use it in explanation of the 

 obscure phenomena of hypnotism^ 

 clairvoyance, telepathy and the like. 



