[2] After receiving a sound classical education in Cornish schools, and some years' pupillage with two local medical men, he entered the united hospitals of Guy's and St. Thomas's in 1808, and in 1809 or early in 1810 returned to Polperro, which he was rarely to leave, dying on 13 April 1870, aged 81.

For sixty years he was the doctor and trusted adviser of the village and neighbourhood, and used with remarkable shrewdness and perseverance the great opportunities afforded to a naturalist at Polperro.

He trained in succession a large number of fishermen to aid him in his pursuits, and the observations made at and near Polperro during his lifetime and since his death have not been equalled in value at any British station.

[3] Among his local fellow-workers and coadjutors, each of them notable, were C. W. Peach, Matthias Dunn (of Mevagissey, Cornwall, 1830-1901), and William Loughrin.

In 1835 he obtained a prize offered by Mr. J. Buller of Morval for the best natural history of the pilchard, printed in the third report of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and also separately.

Dr. F. Day published a series of most interesting extracts from Couch's manuscript journals in Land and Water from 11 August 1883 to 29 March 1884.

The stories in this book were re-used by Louisa Sarah Ann Parr in her successful novel about smuggling titled Adam and Eve.

He was a constant contributor to Notes and Queries, two series of his articles, The Folklore of a Cornish Village, 1855 and 1857, being incorporated in the History of Polperro to which he contributed a sketch of his father's life.