in snuanons SUCh as mese. sclenunc researchers in every part o~

the United States and Canada rely on the extraordinary skills,

knowledge,_and services of a man like Jack Rudloe, a professional

biological collector and superlative nature writer. Poachers as well

as green turtles, shrimpers as well as batfish, seafaring philoso-

phers as well as sea robins are the true-to-life characters in Jack

Rudloe s memorable book about the long wilderness coast of

northwest Florida. The reader soon comes to feel a common stake

in the varied commercial efforts of the author-collector and his

Gulf Coast friends, a fine down-home gallery of shrimpers, oyster-

men, and crabbers whose overflowing nets are gleaned by Jack

Rudloe for highly valuable "trash" creatures useful to medical

research centers but worthless to them.

Mr. Rudloe s collecting adventures with giant cockles, sea pan-

sies, blood clams, lugworms, conchs, sharks, crabs, and sea

cucumbers are exciting, but his trials and errors in his combined

warehouse, laboratory, and shipping point learning to pack and

dispatch some of the oddest creatures on earth are fascinating as

well. A carton filled with dry ice or a simple crate stuffed with eel-

grass may suffice for some, but the resourceful collector finds he

needs all the imagination and ingenuity he can muster to make sure

many delicate animals--such as sharks--survive their jet-air jour-

~eys to distant researchers