Abstract
THE reader who expects under this title to find a dissertation on Psamma arenaria, the marram grass of the coasts of the British Isles, will be disappointed, for the plant is scarcely mentioned. But the book is well worth reading. It is a breezy, refreshing account of many aspects of Nature on the sand-dunes that form the coast line in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, Essex Co., Massachusetts, U.S.A. The author is a naturalist in the widest sense of the word, and has here set down a number of observations, illustrated by some admirable photographs, that will interest alike the serious student of physical geology, the ornithologist, the forester, and indeed all whose scientific tastes take them into the open air. The description of the ice-bound sand-dune coast, and the effects of frost both on the shore and on the sea itself, and the bizarre scenery produced and most successfully illustrated, are truly wonderful. In the chapters dealing with birds, biologists will find some shrewd remarks on sexual selection, and interesting accounts of the courtship of many species of birds. Incidentally there are quoted authentic examples of the economic value of several birds of prey and of some of the insectivorous birds. The book would perhaps be of more direct use to the British reader if the scientific names of the birds were inserted: the popular American names are not very familiar on the eastern side of the Atlantic.
Beach Grass.
C. W.
Townsend
By. Pp. xii + 319 + 42 plates. (Boston, Mass.: Marshall Jones Co., 1923.) 3.50 dollars.
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Beach Grass . Nature 115, 225 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115225b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115225b0