followup from today: i visited Birch Town - another locality cited as being productive for shells in Bakers 1951 Nautilus article, this was/is a small community on the Assateague Channel side of Chincoteague...today its a small concentration of town homes, businesses and some marinas (as in 1951) but current boating options seem mainly to include ecotours and kayak rentals. i found two aquaculture businesses off Chicken City Road along Toms Cove with shell piles, lots of bivalves including quahogs, oysters, plus blood and ponderous arks etc...but no gastropods that i noticed. interestingly most of the Mercenarias (quahogs) sold now in grocery stores in the NY area come from Toms Cove. A large percentage of them are the "notata" form, which was clearly reflected in the shell piles. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [log in to unmask] - a forum for informal discussions on molluscs To leave this list, click on the following web link: http://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=conch-l&A=1 Type your email address and name in the appropriate box and click leave the list. ----------------------------------------------------------------------