L.B.W. CONTENTS Preface v 1. The Shifting Dunes 1 2. An Introduction to Dune Ecology 5 3. Plants on the Dunes 10 4. Life at the Edge of the Sea 19 5. Insects and Their Kin 33 6. Meeting the Mammals 50 7. Wings over the Sand 58 8. Now It’s Up to You—Check List for Your Discoveries and Field Notes 69 [Illustration: Tree-topped dune.] Chapter 1 THE SHIFTING DUNES Surprising as it may seem, there was a time when many of our most beautiful beaches, the Castle Neck area included, were far inland from the edge of the sea. This was about a million and a half years ago, when the sea was at a lower level than it is today. In fact, a great many changes have helped to form the beaches we see and enjoy now. Of them all, the one brought about by the Ice Age was probably the most influential. It was some 30,000 or 40,000 years ago that New England was overwhelmed by the final advance of a great continental ice sheet. It came from the northwest, and as it inched its way toward the ocean it pushed chunks of rock and great quantities of soil along with it. The rock was continually breaking up as it was shoved forward under the ice. This last glacier covered New England for thousands of years. When it melted, all the debris it had been moving along like a giant bulldozer was left deposited irregularly over the land, some debris perhaps a hundred miles from original location. In addition, the water from the melting ice swept finer sands and gravels along, depositing them over land areas and in lakes and bays.