Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/311

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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
311

THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE

WHARF-PILE FAUNA IN A MUSEUM GROUP

The oceanic waters that lap our shores conceal beneath their tidal margin a wealth of animal and plant life that is surprisingly unfamiliar to those who are not actually students of marine biology. As terrestrial animals ourselves we live and move in the midst of a world of air-breathing creatures with which most of us have become tolerably familiar. Beasts, birds, reptiles and insects have for us an economic or esthetic bearing that gives them a

The Vineyard Haven Wharf Pile Group.

The upper background is made up of enlarged photographic transparencies showing the actual locality. Below the water line, the animals and plants of the wharf piles are represented largely by models. The submarine background effect is produced by five successive sheets of plate-glass through which daylight filters from a window behind.