The first edition of Kira's book was published in 1954 and it was revised in
1959. My copy was
printed in 1972 (18th printing of the 2nd edition) and has a picture of
Spondylus on its cover (and two strombids on the box cover). This
represented our standard reference book for Japanese shells for three
decades after the first edition was published.

Masashi Yamaguchi

-----Original Message-----
From:   Patty Jansen [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Wednesday, January 19, 2000 2:51 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Japanese shell book

I recently acquired a copy of this book in a second hand library (with the
three Cymatiums on the front cover). Whereas it seems there is only
Japanese text, my copy has a title page mostly in English. It says:
Coloured illustrations of the Shells of Japan by Tetsuaki Kira 1955, Osaka
Japan. As for the rest of the book, there are many colour plates (quite
unusual for a book that old), and the text is in Japanese, but at least,
as
Tucker Abbott used to say 'the latin is in English'

Patty
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