Dear Nancy and all other Conchlerifera:

We purchased a very large [600,000 shells] and in many cases very old
collection. It appears to me that some of the serious scientists [Henry
Hemphill, S.A. Mitchell, Ida Oldroyd, James A Zetek et al] and dealers
[Walter Freeman Webb] in the "old days" collected everything in sight!!!! We
have very old specimens from 1890's to 1930's and in many cases there are
many juveniles represented in these collections. In the particular case of
Henry Hemphill, he did a tremendous amount of collecting in the Helix
species in California and we literally have thousands of shells from him all
carefully sorted into shape and color forms and marked for later study. We
also have several hundred Liguus shells that he collected in the Florida
Keys, many of them juvenile, many of them with good color - not apparently
bleached dead shells, although we have quite a few of those as well. The
S.A. Mitchell specimens from the Philippines are frequently found in vast
single species boxes with wide range variability in shell size [all
helicostylid land snails]. I think that there has been an enormous shift in
what is considered appropriate collecting by scientists and serious
collectors as well. When we live collect here in Florida [a past time that I
fear is rapidly coming to an end] we never collect juvenile specimens and
only take the best of the best in any shells that we harvest.

Juvenile shells are important for study purposes but perhaps the only
acceptable way to conduct those studies is with the Digital Camera and a
PalmPilot. Perhaps technology will be the savior of our baby shells!

Bob


Bob & Rosemary

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