PREFACE 
HIS volume is designed to be an aid to the amateur collector 
and student of the organisms, both animal and vegetable, 
which are found upon North American beaches. In it are 
described many invertebrates and some of the more notable varie- 
ties of seaweeds, and each individual is given its proper place in 
the latest classification. 
The technicality of classification or scientific grouping may 
at first seem repellent, but it in reality makes the study of these 
objects more simple; and a systematic arrangement has been 
adopted in the belief that it is the easiest as well as the only sat- 
isfactory way of becoming familiar with the organisms described. 
Without it a very confused picture of separate individuals would 
be presented to the mind, and a book like the present one would 
become a mere collection of isolated scraps of information. Mor- 
phology, or the study of structure, has been touched upon just 
enough to show the objects from the biologist’s point of view and 
to enable the observer to go a little beyond the bare learning of 
names. 
Scientific names have been used from necessity, for the plants 
and animals of the beach are so infrequently observed, except by 
scientific people, that but few of them have cgmmon names; 
and, as a matter of fact, the reader will find that a scientific name 
is as easily remembered as a common one. Technical phrase- 
ology has, however, been avoided as much as possible, even at the 
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