Here is an email i received yesterday from friend and super-naturalist Brian Cassie (Foxboro Massachusetts), many shellers have similar but perhaps not as dramatic stories of shells found in unexpected places: I saw a shell outside of a house in Mattapoisett (SOUTHERN MA) so I stopped and asked the occupants about it and the husband said that 25 years ago, he saw it protruding from the side of a creek in a saltwater marsh in Sandwich....and he pulled it out and brought it home. What is it? One very large valve of a Giant Clam! And now it is up to all of us to try to figure out how that shell got there in the first place. My neighbor, Mary Malloy, is an expert on worldwide maritime things and she said, unhesitatingly, that it was probably brought over by a whaling ship and then thrown or fell overboard near shore and washed up to where it was eventually discovered. There should be several more plausible explanations. In any case, it was discovered just as I described. I wish I had been fishing that creek and found it. Brian ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------