He graduated at Columbian University The George Washington University (GWU) is a private university in Washington, D.C., founded in 1821 as The Columbian College, in 1861, and at the Medical school of that institution in 1863.

He served as a medical cadet in Washington in 1862-1863, an in 1864 was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the regular Army.

In 1872 he published his Key to North American Birds, which, revised and rewritten in 1884 and 1901, did much to promote the systematic study of ornithology in America. In 1873-1876 Coues was attached as surgeon and naturalist to the United States Northern Boundary Commission, and in 1876-1880 was secretary and naturalist to the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, the publications of which he edited. He was lecturer on anatomy in the medical school of the Columbian University in 1877-1882, and professor of anatomy there in 1882-1887.

He resigned from the army in 1881 to devote himself entirely to scientific research.

He was a founder of the American Ornithologists' Union The American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) is the oldest and largest organization in the New World devoted to the scientific study of birds.

It was founded in September 1883 by Elliott Coues, Joel Asaph Allen and William Brewster.

Its quarterly journal, The Auk, has been published since January, 1884.

In addition to ornithology he did valuable work in mammalogy; his book Fur-Bearing Animals (1877) being distinguished by the accuracy and completeness of its description of species, several of which were already becoming rare. In 1887 he became president of the Esoteric Theosophical Society of America.

Among the most important of his publications, in several of which he had collaboration, are A Field Ornithology (1874); Birds of the North-west (1874); Monographs on North American Rodentia, with J. A. Allen (1877); Birds of the Colorado There are also three Colorado Rivers: two in the United States and one in Argentina.

COUES, MARY E WIDOW OF ELLIOTT
DATE OF DEATH: 02/16/1906
DATE OF INTERMENT: Unknown
BURIED AT: SECTION W/DIV  SITE LOT 473
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
WIFE OF ELLIOTT COUES - CAPT ASST SURG

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