The essays are brief ones, with each focusing on a creature or plant. This makes them quick reads and accessible to slow readers as well as advanced ones. Their beautiful descriptions may be their most memorable quality: A low tide at noon has calmed the bay, where sandpipers rest on a spur of damp beach. A herring gull pecking at something backs off reluctantly at my approach.

Bucketless, I am collecting shells in the crown of my hat, discarding earlier specimens when I find something better.

This captivating passage opens "Hermit Crabs." In a small space Swain captures a scene and the action in it.

"Wasps and Wolves" begins, "Gray wolves once howled on Atlantic beaches. Colonists, huddled in huts on the edge of the New World, listened to the chorus of wind, wave, and wolf and were afraid." This time, in a small space, Swain...