Right, and it doesn't mean the thing hasn't been proofread. I've had this
happen several times in American Conchologist  when it was correct in the
"blue line" final proof. I had been assured so many times that the "blue
line" was it, was what you would get, that I doubted my own memory the
first time and went back to check the pervious proof, only to find that it
had been placed correctly. But I've learned that sometimes after a final
proof, as the printing process begins, and something goes wrong, they may
have occasion to "tear down the frame," and as it is being rebuilt, a photo
may get "flopped."  It's just another of those seemingly inexplicable and
frustrating-to-an-editor errors that can creep into the printing process.
But we keep trying.
 
Once we had a photo of a COA shell show trophy winner flopped  in American
Conchologist.  One learns to check the shells fast and first, but I was
newish at the job and didn't think of the possibility  of a flopped trophy,
which contained the COA logo shell, a Neptunea lyrata. That trophy winner
got himself a one-of-a-kind trophy, at least in print!
 
It's also an interesting exercise to try to get a partially trained set of
in-house proofreaders to allow a sinsitral shell to be printed correctly.
They invariably "help" by flopping the photo to dextral orientation.
Without mentioning it to you. You fix it back to sinsitral. They reflop it
to dextral. You fix it and tell the someones in charge, they shake their
heads over your lack of constancy but let it stand, and then someone in the
pressroom kindly "fixes" it back to dextral for me. Enough to make an
editor moan.
 
Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY
[log in to unmask]
 
>Makes you wonder how often other publications get pictures
>(non-shell-related) reversed. If there isn't a shell, or writing,
>or something in it to differentiate left from right. It happens
>constantly!
>
>
>>>>Has anyone read Geerat Vermeij's autobiography "Privileged Hands:
>>>>A Scientific Life"?
>>
>>It is certainly a worthwhile book.  It also demonstrates the seeming
>>impossibility of getting printers to publish a semi-popular book on snails
>>without getting any pictures backwards.  The photo with Geerat, his wife,
>>and daughter in the lab is reversed.
>>
>>David Campbell
>>
>>"Old Seashells"
>>
>>Department of Geological Sciences
>>CB 3315 Mitchell Hall
>>University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
>>Chapel Hill NC 27599-3315
>>USA
>>
>>919-962-0685
>>FAX 919-966-4519
>>
>>"He had discovered an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus"-E. A. Poe, The
>>Gold Bug
>>
>>
>Peter Egerton, Vancouver, Canada
>Collector of worldwide Mollusca
>
>