Elliott Coues (1842–99)

American naturalist and historian. MD, National Medical College, 1863; PhD, Columbian College, 1869. US army surgeon, 1864–80; professor of anatomy, National Medical College, 1881–7. Vice-president, American Ornithologists’ Union, 1883–90; president, 1892–5. Author of the influential Key to North American birds (1872), and over 800 other monographs, articles, notes, and reviews (including Birds of the Northwest (1874) and Monographs of North American Rodentia (1877)), and editor of several western exploration and travel accounts.