Andrew,

The most serious eastern U.S. land snail collector was Leslie Hubricht (if
Hubricht is still alive he is in his 90s). The culmination of his life-long
collections was his county-based distribution maps published in 1985. His
collections are at the Field Museum in Chicago & may be searched at
http://www.fmnh.org/research_collections/zoology/zoo_sites/invertebrates/
(this is a new address)

Hubricht's maps were based on primarily his collections & the records in
Pilsbry (1936-1944). There are 2 problems here: (1) the records in Pilsbry
are old; some date to the 19th century; (2) Hubricht's collections do not
appear to have been carried out systematically. I have checked some of his
records for Maryland (from the address above) & gotten the impression that
he collected somewhat haphazardly. In other words, he seems to have picked
up a couple of shells in this woods, a couple of shells in that woods, but
never established the full species count for a small locality (at least in
MD). This was perhaps because he was using counties as units.

Nevertheless, his records are an invaluable starting point to determine what
species have been recorded from a county. But in my opinion, a more valuable
survey could be carried out if one picked a smaller location, say a park, &
surveyed ALL of the species in that park or if one based his/her survey
boundaries not on human-invented artificial boundaries, but on geological or
ecological limits.

And yes, school children can carry out land snail surveys if they are guided
by a knowledgeable teacher. My soon-to-be-six year old son has found many
shells for me on our collecting trips together since he was about 4 or so.

>It might be a good idea to ask on
> Conch-L whether
> there are any species that are illegal to collect, e.g., the
> tree snails of
> southern Florida.

The current list of endangered species is at
http://ecos.fws.gov/webpage/webpage_vip_listed.html?module=undefined&code=I&
listings=0#F

However, one needs to be able to recognize at least the genera names to tell
if a listed snail is terrestrial & freshwater.

Hope these will help.

Aydin