The list has become such a deadly serious place that nobody dares share
their favorite shell pranks???

-R.

<Somebody wrote;

Barney Winston's anecdote about scattering misc. shells on the beach in
front of their hotel made me think: i'll bet half the list can tell
about little shell-related jokes and pranks they played on gentle,
unsuspecting folk at some point in their Conchological Career.

        To give the ball a little push, i have a confession myself.
When i was in Labrador trying to get a bit of "extreme shelling" in, i
had plenty of time to spare because the Chlamys islandica trawler i went
out on had almost no luck at all for the first 1.5 days, so they packed
up shop and left me behind.  I roamed the foothills of the Torngat
Mountains from my base in Nain, and was constantly coming across the
carefully constructed "Inukshuks" (ok, don't quote me on the spelling!),
which are man-shaped cairns built by the Inuit to mark where they had
been, and possibly to act as landmarks.  One day, on a whim, i built my
own - with a little "twist": i stowed about a dozen attractive
Philippine, Indian, Floridan and Zanzibarican shells in the cracks and
crannies of my own little pile of rocks.  I can just imagine some Inuit,
Dene or tourist coming across my Faux-Inukshuk and finding these
curiously un-subarctic objects of natural history hiding in its
innards.....of course if it is one of the multitudes of children i gave
similar shells to on that trip, perhaps they will remember me, and
wonder whatever happened to the strange Shell Man who promised to come
back some day (and with any luck, i will!!).

Spring is Sprung in Neu Shotland - Coltsfeet all over the place!!

> From: "Barney, Winston" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Of Sea and Shore magazine, Vol. 12, no.2  (1981-82) has a full page color photo of three strombs collected at Guaymas, Mexico. The photo  caption requests that anyone having ideas about their identification should write to O.S & S.
> Was this a joke by Tom, or were these shells "planted" by some  tricksters? I have searched the subsequent issues of O.S.& S. for  reactions to the photo, but I am not able to find an answer. Since the shells appear to be S. alatus, I'm wondering how they got there.  We recently spent a week or so shelling in Guaymas. Our hotel at San Carlos was on a barren beach, but on the last night of our trip we > left ALL our leftovers - the shells we couldn't pack - on the beach in > front of the hotel. The next day , while waiting to leave, we observed  several other folks exclaiming in amazement at the all the pretty > shells, most of which came from miles away and much different habitat.   I wonder if the shells pictured by Tom were mischieviously  transplanted or just the victims of poor locality data?
>
>
> Winston Barney
> Fort Worth, Texas