He then went to India and in April 1884 began working in the Natural History section at the Indian Museum, Calcutta, with the position of First Assistant to the Superintendent.
[5][6][7] During these years he published a considerable number of books and papers on Indian entomology, a subject which had presumably interested him prior to his departure from England.
Clearly an independent woman, she made frequent trips to England and North America, sometimes accompanied by Cotes but often alone.
[10][dubious – discuss] After her marriage, she always published using the name "Mrs Everard Cotes" in conjunction with her own name, "Sara Jeannette Duncan."
They visited Paris on their way to England, and Cotes began to plan a completely new career, in journalism, probably inspired by his wife.
In March 1897, Cotes resigned from the Indian Daily News and became a government press correspondent in Simla, where they had a house.
In 1901 they moved to Calcutta, where Cotes was charged with finding recruits for the Boer War[12] After several years of this kind of living, he moving between Calcutta and Simla, his wife between India and England or North America, Cotes set off alone early in 1906 on a visit with other journalists to the Far East, passing through China, Manchuria, Korea and Japan, not long after the end of the Russo-Japanese War.
[14] Cotes finally sold his share in the Eastern News Agency in 1919, and joined his wife in London, where they leased a house, 17 Paultons Square in Chelsea.
[16][dubious – discuss] Duncan visited Canada for the last time in the autumn of 1919, together with her husband, who was reporting for Reuters on the tour of the Prince of Wales.
[18][dubious – discuss] Cotes, who was her beneficiary, worked as parliamentary correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor in the following years.