Hi Carol,

By all means, help yourself!  By way of more examples, I attach below
the complete text of an article I wrote, which was published in the
March 1999 issue of American Conchologist. I hope you and others find it
interesting. Feel free to use information from this as well, for your
newsletter.  I hope this isn't too long for a Conch-L post, but if it
is, I guess the listserv computer will block it - so here goes . . .

Regards,
Paul M.


On February 21, 1753, following a year of intense promotion, one of the
first great international seashell auctions was held at Longford’s of
London.
 Collectors and dealers traveled from nations throughout Europe, enticed
by a
published list of conchological rarities to be sold to the highest
bidder.  A
collector of today, perusing the same list, would not find it
particularly
exciting.  A cowrie collector would not find Cypraea leucodon, exusta,
or
broderippi listed.  These species would not be described until 75 years
later.  A century and a half would pass before the discovery of Cypraea
armeniaca, fultoni, hirasei, langfordi, porteri, rosselli, and many
others.
No slit shells were offered - the entire family was “known” to be long
extinct.
Perhaps the rarest and most coveted shell of the era was Lister’s conch
(Strombus
listeri); however, that species was not included on the auction agenda,
as it
was known from only a single specimen, collected 130 years previous.
One
specimen which was offered, and which served as a strong incentive
for many people to undertake such a long and arduous journey, was a
large and
perfect specimen of the precious wentletrap (Epitonium scalare), which
ultimately sold for the modern day equivalent of about five hundred
dollars.
Today of course, a similar specimen can be readily purchased for one
hundredth that amount.
     There are many aspects of conchology which contribute to its allure
-
the intriguing shapes, fascinating patterns and attractive color
combinations
which characterize the shells themselves; their relationship to distant
and
exotic locales; the chance to reach out and touch, in some peripheral
way,
the most mysterious and forbidding of all places on our planet, the
ocean
depths; the psychological discipline of categorizing and classifying;
and,
for some at least, the opportunity to possess that which is unique or
rare.
Of all these elements, the last mentioned is the least enduring.  With
proper
care the colors, patterns, and physical form of shells will last for
many
generations.  The more subjective psychological and emotional aspects of
collecting will never wane as long as there are those who find
satisfaction
and pleasure in the intricacies of the natural world.  But rarity in
marine
shells is an attribute that inevitably diminishes over time.  With few
exceptions, the rare shells of yesterday are the common shells of today.

     What exactly do we mean when we say that a shell species is rare?
All
of us have had some contact with environmental issues.  We realize that
various species of mammals, birds, and reptiles are considered rare; and
some
of them have been officially declared endangered, thereby outlawing
their
collection, sale, exportation and importation.  Yet a marine mollusk,
even
one known from fewer than ten specimens, is never classified as
endangered,
even though conchologists may consider it extremely rare.  There is a
simple
explanation for this disparity.  Typically, before a mammal, bird, or
other
terrestrial animal is listed as rare, a large percentage of its
potential
habitat has been thoroughly explored over an extended period of time,
and a
lack of sightings can then reasonably be interpreted to relate to an
actual
sparsity of individuals in the area studied.  We cannot reliably state
that a
species is rare in nature unless we have systematically surveyed most of
the
habitat where it is likely to be found.  We know that the next valley
will
not be overpopulated with giant pandas, nor the next mountain peak
covered
with condor nests, only because we have already examined those very
peaks and
valleys.  The same principle holds true for a land snail endemic to a
specific island, or a fresh water mussel confined to a particular river
system - we can make definitive statements about its relative scarcity,
and
about changes in its population density over time.  But such information
cannot be determined for most marine mollusks, particularly those which
live
in deep water.
     Only a small fraction of the ocean floor has been explored to date.

Such ventures have yielded a bewildering array of organisms, some
bizarre,
some beautiful, some abundant, and some relatively rare.  However, the
relative scarcity of a given species in such samples cannot reasonably
be
taken as an indication of the actual population density in nature, a
fact
which has been demonstrated repeatedly as formerly “rare” species have
been
discovered in abundance when a new locality is examined for the first
time.
Therefore, unlike the classification of a terrestrial species as rare,
which
indicates that few specimens exist on earth, calling a marine
invertebrate
rare simply means there are few specimens in collections.  One who makes
the
unwarranted assumption that this implies anything about its overall
incidence
in nature is likely to be proven wrong.  After the first specimen of
Strombus
listeri was discovered, a second specimen did not come to light for
another
250 years.  At the beginning of this century, only a half dozen
specimens
were known.  In the late 1960’s, specimens gradually began to appear on
the
international market, and eager collectors paid large sums to obtain
one, not realizing that fishermen in Thailand had begun trawling them by
the
hundreds.  Today a nice specimen brings about ten dollars.
     Only a few months ago, a Russian trawler working off the coast of
Mozambique brought up almost a thousand specimens of Fulton’s cowrie
(Cypraea
fultoni), a species which had sold during the previous year for amounts
in excess
of a thousand dollars.  Reports of this event generated cries of
indignation
and even outrage from some quarters, as the fishermen were lambasted for
the
wanton destruction of so many individuals of such a rare species, as
though a
thousand mountain gorillas or snow leopards had been massacred.  Such
protests overlook the obvious.  It is not possible to catch a thousand
specimens of a truly rare species.  That is what rare means.  Rather
than the
decimation of a scarce animal, this occurrence was a scientific
discovery -
the revelation that Fulton’s cowrie, like so many other “rare” species
of the
past, is not rare at all, once you know where to look.
     R. Tucker Abbott, in his classic 1972 volume Kingdom of the
Seashell,
declared, “It might well be said that there is no such thing as a rare
marine
shell, since any species living today must have a large enough
population,
certainly of several thousands of individuals, to sustain the species”.
History and science seem to be conjoining to prove him right.  In the
same
work, Dr. Abbott described “perhaps the rarest of all ex pisce shells,
the
DuSavel Cone, Conus dusaveli, known from only one specimen coming from a
fish
caught off Mauritius in 1871...”.  In the twenty-seven years since the
publication of his book, at least several hundred living specimens of
this
beautiful species have been collected in the Philippines and elsewhere.
     It might be advisable not to forge too strong a bond between the
current
rarity of the specimens we own and the pleasure and satisfaction we
derive
from them.  Otherwise, our collections will inevitably please and
satisfy us
ever less fully as the years go by, which would sadly undermine the
whole
purpose of the pursuit.