Rachel Carson - The Edge of the Sea

with illustrations by Bob Hines
and a new introduction by Sue Hubbell

A MARINER BOOK
Houghton Mifflin Company
BOSTON NEW YORK

FIRST MARINER BOOKS EDITION 1998

Introduction copyright 1998 by Sue Hubble
Text copyright 1955 by Rachel L. Carson
Text copyright renewed 1983 by Roger Christie
Illustrations copyright 1955 by Robert W. Hines
Illustrations copyright renewed 1983 by Robert W. Hines

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carson, Rachel, 19071964.
The edge of the sea / by Rachel Carson ; with illustrations by
Bob Hines and a new introduction by Sue Hubbell.
I st Mariner Books ed.
p. cm.
"A Mariner book."
ISBN -13: 978-0-395-07505-0 ISBN -13: 978-0-395-92496-9 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-395-07505-x ISBN-10: 0-395-92496-0 (pbk.)
1. Seashore biology. I. Hubbell, Sue. II. Tide.
QH 95.7. C 385 1998
578.769'9dc21 98-44435 CIP

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

QUM 16 15 14 13 12 11 10

Parts of this book first appeared in The New Yorker.

To Dorothy and Stanley Freeman

who have gone down with me into the low-tide world
and have felt its beauty and its mystery.

Acknowledgments xi

Preface xiii

Introduction xv

I . The Marginal World 1

II . Patterns of Shore Life 9

III . The Rocky Shores 39

IV . The Rim of Sand 125

V . The Coral Coast 191

VI . The Enduring Sea 249

Appendix: Classification 251

Index 271

O UR UNDERSTANDING of the nature of the shore and of the lives of sea animals has been acquired through the labor of many hundreds of people, some of whom have devoted a lifetime to the study of a single group of animals. In my researches for this book I have been deeply conscious of the debt of gratitude we owe these men and women, whose toil allows us to sense the wholeness of life as it is lived by many of the creatures of the shore. I am even more immediately aware of my debt to those I have consulted personally, comparing observations, seeking advice and information and always finding it freely and generously given. It is impossible to express my thanks to all these people by name, but a few must have special mention. Several members of the staff of the United States National Museum have not only settled many of my questions but have given invaluable advice and assistance to Bob Hines in his preparation of the drawings. For this help we are especially grateful to R. Tucker Abbott, Frederick M. Bayer, Fenner Chace, the late Austin H. Clark, Harald Rehder, and Leonard Schultz. Dr. W. N. Bradley of the United States Geological Survey has been my friendly advisor on geological matters, answering many questions and critically reading portions of the manuscript. Professor William Randolph Taylor of the University of Michigan has responded instantly and cheerfully to my calls for aid in identifying marine algae, and Professor and Mrs. T. A. Stephenson of the University College of Wales, whose work on the ecology of the shore has been especially stimulating, have advised and encouraged me in correspondence. To Professor Henry B. Bigelow of Harvard University I am everlastingly in debt for encouragement and friendly counsel over many years. The grant of a Guggenheim Fellowship helped finance the first year of study in which the foundations of this book were laid, and some of the field work that has taken me along the tide lines from Maine to Florida.

L IKE THE SEA ITSELF , the shore fascinates us who return to it, the place of our dim ancestral beginnings. In the recurrent rhythms of tides and surf and in the varied life of the tide lines there is the obvious attraction of movement and change and beauty. There is also, I am convinced, a deeper fascination born of inner meaning and significance.

When we go down to the low-tide line, we enter a world that is as old as the earth itselfthe primeval meeting place of the elements of earth and water, a place of compromise and conflict and eternal change. For us as living creatures it has special meaning as an area in or near which some entity that could be distinguished as Life first drifted in shallow waters-reproducing, evolving, yielding that endlessly varied stream of living things that has surged through time and space to occupy the earth.

To understand the shore, it is not enough to catalogue its life. Understanding comes only when, standing on a beach, we can sense the long rhythms of earth and sea that sculptured its land forms and produced the rock and sand of which it is composed; when we can sense with the eye and ear of the mind the surge of life beating always at its shoresblindly, inexorably pressing for a foothold. To understand the life of the shore, it is not enough to pick up an empty shell and say "This is a murex," or "That is an angel wing." True understanding demands intuitive comprehension of the whole life of the creature that once inhabited this empty shell: how it survived amid surf and storms, what were its enemies, how it found food and reproduced its kind, what were its relations to the particular sea world in which it lived.

The seashores of the world may be divided into three basic types: the rugged shores of rock, the sand beaches, and the coral reefs and all their associated features. Each has its typical community of plants and animals. The Atlantic coast of the United States is one of the few in the world that provide clear examples of each of these types. I have chosen it as the setting for my pictures of shore life, althoughsuch is the universality of the sea worldthe broad outlines of the pictures might apply-on many shores of the earth.

I have tried to interpret the shore in terms of that essential unity that binds life to the earth. In Chapter I, in a series of recollections of places that have stirred me deeply, I have expressed some of the thoughts and feelings that make the sea's edge, for me, a place of exceeding beauty and fascination. Chapter II introduces as basic themes the sea forces that will recur again and again throughout the book as molding and determining the life of the shore: surf, currents, tides, the very waters of the sea. Chapters III, IV, and V are interpretations, respectively, of a rocky coast, the sand beaches, and the world of the coral reefs.

The drawings by Bob Hines have been provided in abundance so the reader may gain a sense of familiarity with the creatures that move through these pages, and may also be helped to recognize those he meets in his own explorations of the shore. For the convenience of those who like to pigeonhole their findings neatly in the classification schemes the human mind has devised, an appendix presents the conventional groups, or phyla, of plants and animals and describes typical examples. Each form mentioned in the book itself is listed under its Latin as well as its common name in the index.