Well it's hard to beat Tom Watters entries to the shell narrative
sweepstakes but some of my favorites were by W.S. Strode, M.D. of
Bernadotte, Illinois who wrote many fine first person accounts in the
Nautilus and elsewhere.  A sampling:

Nautilus 9(2) June 1895  A day on the Spoon River.

"My partner was Dr. J.M Maguire, whose hobby was not shells, but birds.......

Landing on this little island, which covers only about one acre of
ground, we ate lunch, and the doctor collected two or three each
ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglets, that were busily seeking a
dinner in the willows, and we then turned our boat's head down stream
on our return voyage to the village.  Every half mile or so we would
come upon a flock of beautiful moon ducks or dab-chicks, and, in the
trees along the banks, were many red squirrels, and when one was
particularly saucy, the crack of the doctor's gun would fetch him
tumbling into the river."

Pistol packin' doctors collecting shells.....Those were the times.
Wait, that sounds like Harry Lee!

Nautilus 12(1)May 1908.  Unio Collecting, by Dr. Strode (accounts of
a collecting trip with his friend Dr. Maguire)

"The doctor's bird dog Belva, partook of our enthusiasm and
manifested a desire to also search for shells.  After a little
showing she understood how it was done, and it was amusing, indeed to
see her with head submerged hunting a shell and then after securing
it the air of importance assumed as she waddled ashore with it.  We
hope, the coming season, to make an expert collector of her."

I got to get me one of them dogs!

Kevin




--
Kevin S. Cummings
Illinois Natural History Survey
607 E. Peabody Drive
Champaign, IL 61820
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http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/cbd/collections/mollusk.html

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