A HISTORIAN'S 



COAST 



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sans -- r - 



Elliott Corns Nature Trail at Fort Macon was named for the 19th-century naturalist. 



Elliott Coues 



A Naturalist at Fort Macon 



By David Cecelski • Photographs by Scott D. Taylor 



i February 1869, a U.S. Army surgeon named Elliott Coues began a two-year tour 

 of duty at Fort Macon. Destined to become the foremost American ornithologist 

 of his day, the young Coues (pronounced "cows") resented the sandy, remote and 

 wind-swept eastern end of Bogue Banks. He called it "a detestable place" and 

 said he "always felt it a sort of vague disgrace" that the Army had exiled him 

 so far from the Smithsonian Institution, and Boston and Philadelphia, 

 the nation's other capitals for the study of natural history. 



24 SPRING 1998 



