Doris,

I don't know if it is normal...some of you Floridians would be more
knowledgeable about that. But I did hear somewhere that tossing them
back into the water is hard on them...the impact with the water is
enough to break the muscle loose from the shell. Does anyone know if
there is any truth to that? (Come in, Bill Frank?) That is why we waded
out with buckets and tenderly replanted them in the grass beds beyond
the waves. But who knows? Maybe a stray current was in that day and was
moving them out of their normal habitat, unburying them or something. Or
they were congregated for breeding and some out-of-the-normal current or
wave pattern was making lemmings of them.

Do they live in turtle grass like their Queen cousins? We hoped so. I
suspect efforts like this do little good, but we did have two
impressionable young naturalists with us that day, our two sons. One had
to do something.

But, you know, when nature itself is so wasteful, one can't help but
deplore the bad rap shell collectors get for taking, say, three, as we
did that day. We were the only people on  that beach, I might add.

Lynn Scheu
Louisville, KY