An entertaining series of posts!!  I've always enjoyed being a bit of a
Conchological Prankster myself - commercial shells are cheap and a fair
few of them can be transported without breaking anyone's back, so i like
spread them around in various venues just for the fun of it.  However,
the one i am most fond of recounting, may be the one  least likely to be
discovered......  On my one and only (so far: love the place and REALLY
want to get there again sometime!!) visit to Labrador (NE Canada, for
those unfamiliar), i brought a liberal batch of "giving away" shells,
which were recieved by the local inhabitants young and old, with not a
little pleasure and surprise.   Now, the main ethnicity of the place i
stayed at (Nain), was Inuit (often formerly referred to as "Eskimos"),
so there were predictably a few inukshuks scattering the nearby
foothills of the Iron Mountains (these are distinctive human-shaped
stone monuments used as markers and cultural acoutrements by the Inuit -
see
http://images.google.ca/images?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&q=inukshuk&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
for lots of  great photos of Inukshuks).  On my last day there, a
mischevious little idea popped into my occasionally overactive
imagination and i took it out for a spin by hiking out a couple of hours
from town and setting up a medium-sized Inukshuk whose cracks and
crannies were "salted" with selected Filipino tourist shells which had
somehow escaped filing - just to make them a TAD more believeable.  If
anyone ever checks out my novice stonework, they might have to think
twice or at least do a bit of research in order to figure out where
those particular shell-goodies came from....

 From Sunny Warm (ok, 7 C, but that feels pretty balmy for February) New
Scotland,
Ross Mayhew.
http://www.schnr-specimen-shells.com/

From:
Paul Monfils <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:30:11 -0500


I must admit I was guilty of such conchological salting on one
occasion.  We reserved a picnic site at a local state park for a church
outing, close to the ocean, or more accurately, close to a sheltered
inlet off the ocean with virtually no wave action, and a muddy sand
beach.  I knew there would be a lot of children there, and of course I
knew they would be heading down to the beach. So I got there a little
early and scattered about a gallon of small craft-type shells, about 1
to 2 inches in size, around the beach. After we ate, groups of kids
predictably headed down toward the beach.  Pretty soon they started
returning with their finds.  It was pretty interesting to watch.  The
Child would say "Mommy I found some shells".  Mommy would say "that's
nice Dear".  The Child would say "look and see what I found".  In some
cases the child would have to be fairly persistent, but pretty soon
Mommy would take the little paper cup and take the obligatory peek into
it.  Then Mommy's eyes would bug out of her head, and she would say "you
found THOSE shells on the BEACH?!".  Unfortunately some of those present
had been to my home and knew of my avocation, so it didn't take them
long to identify the perpetrator.  I hope the kids got them all.  I
wouldn't want to be responsible for some 101st Century
paleontologist naming Cypraea lynx rhodeislandensis.

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