Elliott Coues on Audubon 



EDITOR'S NOTE 



HILE the guest of the late Mrs. John Woodhouse Audubon, 

 at Salem, N. Y., in July, 1897, Dr. Coues was afforded an 

 opportunity of seeing Audubon's manuscript- journals, letters, 

 drawings and other material, which, with exhaustless patience 

 and perseverance. Miss Maria R. Audubon had gathered from many sources 

 to serve as the basis for the two volumes which form such a fitting tribute 

 to the memory of her grandfather. Dr. Coues, it will be remembered, 

 contributed certain zoological and other notes to this work, and we may 

 magine his pleasure as, with the combined enthusiasm of the ornithologist, 

 bibliophile and annotator, he gave himself to the fascinating task of a 

 minute examination of Audubon's manuscripts. 



Four months later, at the fifteenth Congress of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union, which was held in the American Museum of Natural 

 History in New York city, under the title 'Auduboniana and Other Mat- 

 ters of Present Interest,' Dr. Coues spoke of the great value of these 

 manuscripts, and exhibited, through the courtesy of Miss Audubon, the 

 original portfolio in which the then comparatively unknown 'American 

 Woodsman ' had carried his drawings of birds about Great Britain and the 

 continent, and also the manuscript of the first volume of the 'Ornitho- 

 logical Biographies.' It was an unusually interesting occasion, and those 

 who were privileged to be present are not likely to forget the keen enjoy- 

 ment with which Dr. Coues exhibited relics so intimately associated with 

 Audubon's life and works. * 



A stenographer chancing to be present consented to record Dr. Coues' 

 address, of which the portion relating to Audubon is here printed. Although 

 a verbatim report, it conveys only a faint idea of the impression created by 

 the delivery of the address itself. The attractiveness of the speaker's per- 

 sonality, which never failed to hold the tense interest of his hearers, is 

 lost in this reproduction of his words. We believe, however, that to those 

 who knew him, they will clearly recall the genial but commanding presence 

 of a man whose place in ornithology will never be filled. — F. M. C. 



DR. COUES' ADDRESS 



^^ Mr. President, Fellow Members, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



"We necessarily live in the present, but, as time passes on, the future 

 grows more and more foreshortened and the past correspondingly length- 

 ens out for each one of us. Those who have reached a certain point are, 

 however, inclined to think more of the lengthening past than the fore- 

 shortened future. In other words, we reach a stage of the individual 



^9) 



