A Elliot, In Memoriam : Elliott Coues, Ma 



friendship existed and which only terminated with the death of 

 the senior naturalist. From this period Coues's contributions to 

 literary, scientific 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 of army life prevented him from accepting this posi- 

 tion, but after he retired from the service of the United States he 

 accepted the chair of anatomy at the National Medical College 

 in the medical department of Columbian University, Washington, 

 where he lectured acceptably for ten years. He was also one of 

 the contributors to the Century Dictionary, and had editorial 

 charge of General Zoology, Biology and Comparative Anatomy, 

 and furnished some 40,000 words to this monumental work as 

 his share of the enterprise ; devoting to it the greater part of his 

 labor for seven years. Another immense undertaking to which 

 he devoted some years of painstaking work was a ' Bibliography 

 of Ornithology,' certain instalments of which alone have been 

 published, the greater portion still remaining in manuscript. He 

 also began a ' History of North American Mammals,' but though 

 considerable progress with it was accomplished nothing was ever 

 published. 



From 1861 to 1881 he completed 300 works and paper's, the 

 major portion devoted to ornithology ; and although he always 

 kept up his interest in that science and was more or less an active 

 contributor to it all his life, his later years were more particularly 

 devoted to historical research. The titles to his scientific writings 

 of all kinds, minor papers, reviews and special works, number 

 nearly 1,000, and he was the author or joint author of 37 separate 

 volumes. The work by which he will probably be best known 

 and remembered, and which has had above all others the most 

 important influence on ornithology in our own land, is his ' Key 

 to North American Birds,' a work that in its conception and the 

 masterly manner in which it is carried out in all its details stands 

 as one of the best if not the best bird book ever written. His 

 knowledge of North American mammals was as extensive and 

 intimate as was that of our birds, and the 4 Fur Bearing Animals,' 

 published in 1877, as we ^ as the Monographs on the Muridae, 



