First edition. This is the first of Gosse's books on British natural history which is fully based on his own observations. Gosse's studies of the littoral fauna and flora are particularly important and influential, and are still valuable today. The lithographic plates were drawn on stone by Gosse himself and printed by Hullmandel and Walton; they are considered among his best. This book became the inspiration for sea-shore collecting and for the study of marine ecology during the second half of the nineteenth-century.
Freeman & Wertheimer, 58d, with one leaf of advertisements tipped in at end. Plate XXI is incorrectly numbered XX in all copies.