Hello all, Ross you wrote the following
 
To cut to the chase, there is a seemingly
>legitimate pattern form of C. textile L. which occurs in the general
>population of this species in Madagascar, but which doesn't seem to have
>a name (which is unfair, since many names exist for indistinct,
>intergrading forms which don't deserve them!!)- it has no "textile
>lines" at all on the body whorl- just tents of various sorts (*see
>Manual of the Living Conidae, Volume 1, plate 66, figure 27 for
>illustration*).  Two oddities are 1)
 
I wondered why this specimen is not identified as a scriptus, the scriptus
is located on plate 67 , fig. 9,10,11.
I recently located a copy of the systematic classification of the gastropod
family CONIDAE at the generic level, and DA Motto makes a valid point about
why the family has not been broken down yet into "subfamilies".
As a collector amasses a collection of CONIDAE it becomes obvious that there
are several distinct groups yet they are all called CONIDAE. has anybody
ever heard a reason why this reclassification has never been attempted ?
mark