MARSHES AND MARSH LIFE

A brief sketch of a salt marsh is followed by remarks on marshes in general and a rough chronicle of marsh life season by season--and, as the characterizing terms only begin to suggest, it's a pretty spongy property. Precise distinctions are seldom made, so that all the plants which may appear anywhere in a marsh appear here as if they coexisted, e.g. the salt Water cattail alongside the fresh water water lily; that marshes consist of separate zones is ignored entirely. Even more blatant is the misappropriation of the typically lake-and-stream beaver, of the typically inland trumpeter swan (the latter in a section on waterfowl so broad as to be misleading anyhow). Many of the illustrations are not precise depictions of the text material (even when such is called for) and some are unrelated altogether (especially the ""Microscopic Organisms""). In contrast, Delia Goetz' Swamps at least makes a sound start.