23 JUNE 1933, Page 16

ON FOOT IN DEVON.

A singularly gay, light-hearted and at the same time useful and accurate guide-book (written by a very good naturalist) has been published this week about a county that I have just been perambulating—On Foot in Devon, by Henry Williamson (Maclehose, 5s.): The author is soaked in North Devon : its old stags and TarkaS as well as its country people ; and nearly all the incidentals are admirable. Yet I must make one protest : he falls foul of an old and half- extinct book about the Coast of Devon that gave me recently such pleasure that I tried—quite in vain—to buy a copy. It was written by the father of Edmund Gosse, and he was

quite first class on, marine biology, especially in regard to the Devon and Dorset shores ; and it is surprising how very little is now written about 'either 'the seaweeds or the seaside

animals. A modern Gosse—minus the inoralizings—would be a godsend to many naturalists and to a host of visitor;