NA TURE 



621 



LIFE BY THE SEA-SHORE. 

 Life by the Seashore : an Introduction to Natural 

 History. By Marion Newbigin, D.Sc, &c. Pp. 

 viii + 344. (London : Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 

 Ltd., iQoi.) Price y. 6ci. net. 



MANY of the people who now live on the coast, or 

 of the constantly increasing numbers who 

 periodically migrate for a few weeks to the sea-side, 

 must have often felt the need of just such a book as the 

 one before us. It is suited to the junior student or the 

 amateur who as yet knows little or nothing of marine 

 life ; it is moderate in size and price, and contains a 

 wonderful amount of information ; it is almost as refresh- 

 ing as a dip in the briny itself, and in the treatment of 

 its subject-matter it reminds us of Charles Kingsley's 

 "Glaucus"and of Philip Gosse's "Year at the Shore,'' 

 and other charming works of a former generation. We 

 in Britain are a maritime people, we owe much to the sea, 

 and we boast on all appropriate occasions of our connec- 

 tion with it. Surely, then, we ought all of us to have 

 some elementary knowledge of oceanography — of our 

 seas and their ways and their inhabitants. British 

 naturalists in the past have done much to enrich marine 

 zoology by splendid monographs, such as those of the 

 Ray Society and some of \'an \'oorst's series ; but the 

 public at the sea-side cannot be expected to read mono- 

 graphs — or to understand them if they did — and the 

 volumes of Gosse are out of print, and moreover are 

 somewhat antiquated both in nomenclature and science. 



The present little book by Dr. Marion Newbigin is 

 quite up to date, and although scientifically accurate and 

 sound is so delightfully simple that it can be read and 

 comprehended by anyone at the sea-side who can collect 

 common shore animals and compare them with the 

 printed pages. It is food for babes compared with the 

 monographs, but is at the same time sufficiently nourish- 

 ing and stimulating to lead to the healthy development 

 of sturdy young marine zoologists. Judging from the 

 results I have had with some average schocri-girls of 

 fifteen to eighteen upon whom it has been tried during the 

 last few weeks, I should expect that this book will give 

 rise to many delightful collecting expeditions, and after- 

 hours full of intellectual pleasure when observing and 

 identifying the specimens and reading up and verifying 

 their characteristics. It is satisfactory, by the way, to see 

 that Miss Newbigin insists upon the educational value 

 of a certain amount of collecting and of species work — 

 "and the identifying of species, though now sadly out of 

 fashion, is an occupation which may yield one of the 

 subtlest of pleasures." " So much of the present-day 

 academical teaching seems to have [a certain] result, 

 that I cannot but urge anyone beginning open-air 

 studies to find some time for species work, and for this 

 habits of patient and minute observation are essential," 

 &c. (p. 25). 



Our author is already known to zoologists from her 



papers on the pigments of Crustacea and other animals 



and her little book on " Colour in Nature." The present 



book, she tells us, is based upon a course of lectures — 



NO. 1669, VOL. 64] 



given presumably to Edinburgh students, as most of the 

 animals dealt with, or chosen as types, are common east 

 coast forms, and as a result one occasionally comes upon 

 a remark that does not apply to other parts of our sea. 



After a couple of mtroductory chapters on the condi- 

 tions of shore life and the general characteristics of 

 shore animals, such as shells, burrowing, weapons, part- 

 nerships, masking, larval characters, classification, hints 

 as to methods, and so on. Chapter iii. starts with sponges 

 and goes on to zoophytes. Then sea-anemones, worms, 

 echinoderms, Crustacea, molluscs, fishes and ascidians 

 occupy the next twelve chapters, after which is a final 

 section on the distribution and relations of shore animals, 

 a list of works of reference and a double index. On the 

 whole, perhaps the section on the higher Crustacea is the 

 most full and satisfactory. The crabs seem especially 

 well done, and also the polycha;tes. More space than 

 the passing reference on p. 27 should have been given to 

 the Protozoa. It is useless to pretend that the subject- 

 matter of this book can be worked through without the 

 microscope, and if that instrument is required for the 

 triradiate spicules of the calcareous sponge, why should 

 it not be applied to show us Noctiluca and Ceratium and 

 Rotalia and Folliculina or some other equally common 

 and important shore Protozoa? A short section on a 

 few of the more abundant diatoms also would be justified 

 by their great importance in connection with the food of 

 animals in the sea, and ultimately of man. 



One would rather not make any critical remarks — but 

 few are needed — and if certain points are now noted 

 which may seem to detract to some extent from the 

 value of the book, they are not put forward in any fault- 

 finding spirit, but are to be regarded rather as sugges- 

 tions which may be of use to the author when a second 

 edition is called for. There is a certain want of propor- 

 tion in the amount of space allotted to different groups. 

 For e.xample, we find more than twenty pages, and a 

 dozen figures, on the hydroid zoophytes, and less than 

 twenty lines (no figures) on the Polyzoa, which are so 

 constantly associated with the hydroids in shore pools 

 and on seaweeds such as Fucus and Laminaria. It is 

 difficult to see any reason for this and a few other cases 

 of arbitrary selection. The two groups occur together, 

 the Polyzoa are usually the more abundant and striking, 

 the same methods of collecting and examining apply— 

 the pocket lens will show a certain amount of the struc- 

 ture of the colony in each case, but a microscope is really 

 necessary for both. And as to the aesthetic pleasures 

 derived from beauty and charm of movement, I find that 

 the commonest of shore Polyzoa — such as Flustrella 

 hispida, found all round our coasts, in profusion, on 

 /^«i.7«— alive in a watch-glass of sea-water under even a 

 low power of the microscope, protruding and retracting 

 its crown of ciliated tentacles, is one of the most fascin- 

 ating objects that can be shown to, or found by, the 

 young naturalist on the sea-shore, and one of the most 

 easily obtainable from which to demonstrate ciliary 

 action and to give as an example of an animal collecting 

 food by causing currents in the water. 



I have alluded to the inadequate treatment of Pro- 

 tozoa. A more serious omission even is that of the 

 Copepoda, a group of great importance amongst marine 

 animals on account both of its numerical strength and of 



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