Book description
This is the funny and touching story of a menagerie of eccentric and
talented ecologists who, mainly as a hobby, spent forty summers at Lough
Ine, a stunning marine lough in a corner of Ireland, where myths seep
from the ground like will o' the wisps and, in one of the most unlikely
projects in the history of science, were responsible for the reinvention
of marine biology. Among the stars of the book are the marine creatures
that occupy the lake: sea urchins that won't dine unless they wear a
hat, otters that steal experiments, and worms that will only mate by
order of the moon. The creatures' eccentric behaviour is matched only by
that of the ecologists themselves, whose antics and interactions with
their Irish neighbours are all lovingly described with Norton's keen eye
for both the wonderful and the absurd. But for all its humour, the book
is also a moving account of two ecologists who collaborated for forty
years until their friendship came to a tragic end. The book brings
together all the rich flavours of Ireland, the wonders of natural
history and the magic of being a marine biologist just for the fun of
it. Trevor Norton is Professor of Marine Biology at the University of
Liverpool and Director of the Port Erin Marine Laboratory on the Isle of
Man. He has authored over 150 scientific publications and books, and is
an authority on the history of scientific diving.
