Hello, All. Just a note of thanks for the number of comments I
received about the account of my summer shelling excursion, and that
folks on the list enjoy and would like to see more stories. As I
had said I had loved Betty Jean Piech's and Martin Tremor's accounts
of their trips and myself would like to see trip stories.

Just as Rutherford..... ( whoever wrote that marvelous piece on shells
in the 1949 National Geographic) "Shells Take You Over World Horizons"
(title something like that) so do everyone's collecting stories. And as I
sit in a high building looking out over a lovely but very "inland" city
those accounts do just that.

I'm thinking that a way to keep the ball rolling could be some accounts
of "that shell you almost didn't take".  On my Bimini trip, I found a cone
shaped thing covered with a brown crust There was no way of knowing what
it was. But I took it anyway.( The experts I have shelled with have
always said to take that kind of thing).  When I
got it home and was cleaning shells I almost tossed it away
  But just a little bit of chipping and the crust fell away - leaving
me a beautiful orangy red conus cardinalis, with the white blotches around
the middle, and with a good lip to boot !

Karen