Best known as the author of the pioneering Key to North American Birds, Elliott Coues (1842-99) was one of America's most renowned but least understood ornithologists and historians-as well as a naturalist, anatomist, taxonomist, writer and editor, Army surgeon on the American frontier, occultist, and the youngest person ever to become a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Now available in paperback, this comprehensive biography of a brilliant, ambitious, and phenomenally productive man ranks as the definitive life of Elliott Coues.

Discusses habits, economic status, morphology, variation, history, and specimens of North American rice rats. Provides a key and descriptions for species and subspecies