Well, since nobody is interested in Ecological websites, i  might as
well share a Collecting Adventure!  Most of my "interesting times"
collection-wise, involve getting very, very cold and/or listening to
country-and-western and/or punk rock music for many hours on end
(believe it or not, after the first 6 hours, Kiss starts to sound a LOT
like Dolly Parton.....),  so i'll ramble on about something else. (but
not for long - has anyone ever heard of "computer elbows" (and no, i
don't mean that new ultra-chewy kind of cyber-pasta that guarantees 16
kilobytes per serving ! )?)
        St. Pierre and Miquelon are two teensy islands off SW Newfoundland
France got centuries ago in return for giving up all claims to the rest
of Canada.  They give their moniker to St. Pierre Bank, which is the
roughest, toughest piece of fishing-grounds  in these here parts - only
18-20 ftms, and they get waves from three directions - south, northeast,
and west- and VERY mean tides.  The result is a perpetual, unpredictable
bronco-ride that rodeo-riders would pay good loot to train on, if they
only knew!!  I figured that three directions of waves meant three
sources of nutrients, which could only be good, biodiversity-wise, so
when i was offered a trip there in 1992 aboard an off-shore scalloper,
my little "go-north-young-man" heart did a sumersault and said Oui, but
of course, as visions of the famed, fabled Buccinids of Newfoundland
danced in my head (hey - if you can't mix them, what's a metaphor??),
many months before Christmas.  Well, the results were similar to the
time i went somewhere in search of migrating herds of Calliostoma (but
that's another story......): NOT quite what i expected!!  Seems that
shallow places with strong tidal currents and lots of white-water
(remind you of any recent presidents??)  mean only one thing around
here: Rocks.  Big ones. Nothing but.  The place most definitely lived up
to its tough-neighhbourhood reputation, and even the most seasoned salt
amongst the crew had trouble staying upright more than half the time - a
feat made all the trickier by the gazillions of round, purple
sea-cucumbers (holothurians) rolling all over the joint (this was before
the Japaneese found out about them, so they were just a nuisance, and
not a cah-crop!).  I was awestruck by the skill of the winch-operator
(they invariably pronounced it "wench", which provided some rather
sexist humor which only i seemed to notice (Oink, oink)!!), who could
bring many tons of boulders aboard in weather would have caused Captian
Ahab to scurry towards shore, and crash them gently down on the deck at
precisely the right moment.  I was also a bit surprised by the SIZE of
some of them - the largest could have been a Volkswagen Beetle in
another incarnation!!
        Needless to say,  the shelling was less than spectacular, even though
we got our 30,000 lbs of scallops in 7 days flat.  The number of
Buccinids were easily counted on the thumbs of both hands, and aside
from a few common brown bivalves and little white scaphopods, not a lot
of gain for the pain (ok, i actually had a lot of fun - those were the
good-old-days before i biked into a parked car at 48  +/-  2 km/hr and
injured my inner ear: i simply NEVER got seasick (and to make doubly
sure, i was wired-up on thos little scopolamine patches you put behind
your ears (ever hear of witches' brews and Belladona?  Same chemical,
only they used a bit more of it: I didn't imagine myself flying around
on a broomstick, but i wasn't feeling much pain either!..))).  There was
ONE saving grace from that sordid sortee, actually : Wondrously colorful
Chlamys islandica, which got that way from living in the Coraline Algae
zone: the rocks and nearly everything else in most clear-water,
high-energy areas of Eastern Canada are covered with pink and purplish
coraline algae which the Tonicella, Chlamys and other beasties who live
in there come to look like, coloration-wise (and tons of orange, which
blends in with an encrusting sponge which made cleaning some of the
shells a LOT easier!!).  I gathered enough to last for about 4 years, to
the enjoyment of Kevan Sunderland, Bret Raines, Barb Haviland, Koen
Fraussen, and a number of other sellers, traders and Pecten-people (many
of whom are STILL after me to come up with a similar batch, but all i
have managed since then are the interesting-but-pastel guys i brought
back from Labrador in '97.).  At any rate, if you ever come across
colorful Islandic scallops which claim to be from St. Pierre Bank
anytime around 1992, i hope you will think of me.
First day of summer here: 71 F, which beats at least half the highs in August!!
-Ross M.
--
Ross Mayhew:    Schooner Specimen Shells:    Http://www.schnr-specimen-shells.com
"We Specialize in the Unusual"
Phone: (902) 876-2241     Snail Mail; P.O Box 20005, RPO Spryfield,
Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3R 2K9.
But try to find "something for Everyone"!!