Crane’s Beach Diorama, Museum of Science
LIFE IN THE SHIFTING DUNES
A popular field guide to the natural history of Castle Neck, Ipswich, Massachusetts, with attention to the unusual ecological relationships peculiar to such an area
BY LAURENCE B. WHITE, JR.
Museum of Science, Boston
Illustrated by HENRY B. KANE
A PUBLICATION OF THE MUSEUM OF SCIENCE, BOSTON
Copyright, 1960,
by the Museum of Science, Boston
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the publishers.
Library of Congress Card Number: 60-8980
Printed in the United States of America by
The Murray Printing Company
Forge Village, Massachusetts
PREFACE
This popular field guide to Castle Neck, Ipswich, Massachusetts, was the inspirationof Mr. Cornelius Crane, who has summered there since boyhood. Twoyears ago, Mr. Crane asked us if we would be willing to undertake a survey ofthis typical dune area if funds were made available for the study. We weredelighted to cooperate in the project, and our Education Department undertookit with real enthusiasm.
Some preliminary work was done in 1957, but during July, August, andpart of September, 1958, Laurence B. White, Jr., of our Education staff, andGeoffrey Moran, his assistant, moved to Castle Neck. It is Larry who hascompiled this field guide.
Larry has been associated with our Museum since his Junior High Schooldays, when his consuming interest in natural history made him an almost dailyvisitor, and later a valued Education Department volunteer. Now, after hisgraduation from the University of New Hampshire, where he majored in Biologyand Education, he has joined our permanent staff. I recount this only to pointout that this study was undertaken by a born and bred New England naturalistwho enjoyed every minute of his work on it.
Finding a little cottage on the side of a marsh on the road to Little Neck,Larry and Jeff took it over as their combined summer residence and laboratory,and spent the July and August weeks in Thoreau-like exploration of the beachand dunes, the swamps and woodlands of Castle Neck. Their personal relationshipwith the living things on the Neck is feelingly reflected in this guide:sympathy with the heroic struggle for survival on the dunes; admiration forthe hardihood of the little-admired Poison Ivy; amusement with the odd waysof the Common Barnacle, which “goes through life standing on its head andkicking food into its mouth with its feet”; and exasperation with the mischievouspractice of noisy Crows, who delight in wrecking an Owl’s daytime sleep.
It is perhaps because of this perceptive quality of understanding thatLarry’s report of the survey has readily adapted into a popular field guide,directing the curious into a fascinating exploration of the “heap o’ living” goingon under our very noses and all but ignored by most of us. This guide is notintended as an exhaustive research work or a listing of all the living things tobe found on Castle Neck. Rather, it purposely addresses itself to naturalhistory readily observable by vi