Barney Winston's anecdote about scattering misc. shells on the beach in
front of their hotel made me think: i'll bet half the list can tell
about little shell-related jokes and pranks they played on gentle,
unsuspecting folk at some point in their Conchological Career.

        To give the ball a little push, i have a confession myself.  When i was
in Labrador trying to get a bit of "extreme shelling" in, i had plenty
of time to spare because the Chlamys islandica trawler i went out on had
almost no luck at all for the first 1.5 days, so they packed up shop and
left me behind.  I roamed the foothills of the Torngat Mountains from my
base in Nain, and was constantly coming across the carefully constructed
"Inukshuks" (ok, don't quote me on the spelling!), which are man-shaped
cairns built by the Inuit to mark where they had been, and possibly to
act as landmarks.  One day, on a whim, i built my own - with a little
"twist": i stowed about a dozen attractive Philippine, Indian, Floridan
and Zanzibarican shells in the cracks and crannies of my own little pile
of rocks.  I can just imagine some Inuit, Dene or tourist coming across
my Faux-Inukshuk and finding these curiously un-subarctic objects of
natural history hiding in its innards.....of course if it is one of the
multitudes of children i gave similar shells to on that trip, perhaps
they will remember me, and wonder whatever happened to the strange Shell
Man who promised to come back some day (and with any luck, i will!!).

Spring is Sprung in Neu Shotland - Coltsfeet all over the place!!

> From: "Barney, Winston" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Of Sea and Shore magazine, Vol. 12, no.2  (1981-82) has a full page color photo of three strombs collected at Guaymas, Mexico. The photo  caption requests that anyone having ideas about their identification  should write to O.S & S.
> Was this a joke by Tom, or were these shells "planted" by some  tricksters? I have searched the subsequent issues of O.S.& S. for  reactions to the photo, but I am not able to find an answer. Since the  shells appear to be S. alatus, I'm wondering how they got there.  We recently spent a week or so shelling in Guaymas. Our hotel at San Carlos was on a barren beach, but on the last night of our trip we > left ALL our leftovers - the shells we couldn't pack - on the beach in > front of the hotel. The next day , while waiting to leave, we observed  several other folks exclaiming in amazement at the all the pretty > shells, most of which came from miles away and much different habitat.   I wonder if the shells pictured by Tom were mischieviously  transplanted or just the victims of poor locality data?
>
>
> Winston Barney
> Fort Worth, Texas