NOTES AND LITERATURE. 
GENERAL BIOLOGY. 
Arnold's Sea Beach at Ebb Tide. — This is the type of book 
which one wishes had been written years ago. Every one will recall 
his struggles when he first began seashore collecting; the vain 
attempts to identify the specimens found and in some cases even 
to ascertain the relationship of certain forms. Such a volume as 
this would have lightened the labors and have given additional 
pleasure to a trip to the shore. Although late in coming, it is none 
the less welcome and will doubtless be of great value to many begin- 
ners. The tendency of the past dozen years has been to stand in 
morphological and physiological lines, and the systematic side of 
biology has been too much neglected. 
This volume simplifies many of the collector’s difficulties, for with 
simple descriptions and characteristic figures it enables one to recog- 
nize a large number of the animals and plants found on the American 
coasts from Mt. Desert to Florida ; from Puget Sound to San Diego. 
It begins with hints on collecting and preserving specimens and 
then takes up, in systematic order, the alga, sponges, coelenterates, 
worms, molluscoids, echinoderms, arthropods, mollusks, and tuni- 
cates, describing and usually figuring the more common species. 
Each of these groups has a section OF chapter devoted to it, and the 
descriptions are prefaced by an outline of the morphology, life-his- 
tory, and economic relations of the group. : : 
In looking more closely at the text one notices certain blemishes 
which are almost unavoidable in à work of such large scope and 
which will doubtless disappear !n for future editions 
there will certainly be. Thus in the chapter on collecting there 
should be directions for killing the animals properly, and there cer- 
tainly should be some hints as to the of formal as a peor 
fluid. Again, there is noticeable a lack of symmetry in Mr aedi 
Thus among the decapods we find that Gelasimus has given way 
! Arnold, Augusta Foote. The Sea Beach at Ebb Tide, à guide to the engin 
the seaweeds and the lower forms of an life found between tide marks, wit : 
more than 6oo Jlustratone. New AP The Century Company, 1901- X + 
490 pp 
937 
