Page:Bird-lore Vol 04.djvu/28

 Coues at His First Army Post 7

arriving in camp with many specimens. Clad in a corduroy suit of many pockets and having numerous sacks and pouches attached to his saddle, he regularly rode out of column every morning astride of his buckskin- colored mule, which he had named Jenny Lind on account of her musical bray. Rarely did we see him again until we had been some hours in the following camp, but we sometimes heard the discharge of his double- barreled shotgun far off the line of march. He usually brought in all his pockets and pouches ﬁlled with the trophies of his search, and when he sat upon the ground and proceeded to skin. stuff and label his speci- mens he was never without an interested group of officers and men about him. To any one interested to learn the art of preparing the specimens he became an earnest and painstaking instructor. In time pretty much every person in the command was contributing something to the Doctor's packing cases.

When we reached the most dangerous part of our march and frequent attempts to stampede our grazing flock and herds were made by the lurking red man, the Doctor was cautioned to remain near the escort, but the flitting of rare plumage or the utterance of a strange note would often tempt him away and give us great anxiety until he returned. In three collisions with the Indians he showed us he was possessed of true soldierly spirit.

At one point the danger became so great that the discharge of ﬁre- arms by any member of our party was strictly forbidden and all were told that should a shot be heard we were all to rally in its direction. One day we rallied in hot haste to the rear, only to meet the ornithologist holding up a beautiful and rare specimen. saying: “I really could not allow this bird to escape without causing a serious loss to science."

"Well," replied the commanding oﬂicer, “I shall deprive science of any further collections for a week by placing you in arrest and taking possession of your gun and ammunition."

The arrest, however, did not last until next morning, when the colonel, having slept off his vexation, delivered Doctor Coues a lecture on military science, with particular reference to service in an Indian country, and told him what he might expect if he did not remain near the escort and refrain from ﬁring until we were out of that region.

Professionally, the Doctor was a good surgeon, and never neglected his duty. In Arizona for a year he continued his collecting throughout a large portion of the territory, and, when he was relieved from duty and ordered to Washington in November of 1865, he told me he should take with him over two hundred and fifty distinct species of birds and six hitherto unknown to science.