THOUSAND ACRE MARSH

Subtitled A Span of Remembrance, this is nostalgic recall, focussed primarily on a lifetime of learning to know nature at first hand. The wide marshes of Delaware and the salt coastal marshes of Maine are shared the four seasons round. Canoeing on the rivers, studying bird behavior, exploring the marshy reaches, learning to know the wildlife in his chosen haunts,-there is much that is fascinating for his fellow nature lovers- and it is for them- and for himself- that he writes. Unfortunately, he shares the faults as well as the virtues of a whole school of minor nature writers,such as a tendency to abandon native speech for a pseudo-poetic prose sprinkled with ""'tis"" and ""o'"". His material lacks organization; one could wish the personal thread had been supplied at the start instead of the end. For here is a well-to-do lawyer who indicates to other men approaching retirement a way of life that holds fast something of a vanishing world and adds new riches in declining years. It needs some such note to widen its appeal.