Well Good Evening Tom: What a wonderful message! Thought that I was the only person that could ramble. You certainly have a nice collection and one that I would envy. But I look at it this way. I would like to complete a family before moving on to the next one. I know that I have given away a lot of shells in the past 30 years, but I do enjoy the beauty of these little pig cowries! In Vietnam, I remember spending many quite Hours in coral lagoons, with Giant clams and colorful parrot fish as my constant companions as I poked around all of the coral heads. I was fortunate to be away from the action, but then I was not a collector, but a voyeur. So with that, my thoughts about why I collect only one Family. Regards: Bruce -----Original Message----- From: Tom Eichhorst <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sunday, November 22, 1998 7:33 PM Subject: Re: Introduction: >> Bruce, > >Welcome aboard. Your envy for the "scientific types" is more than equally >matched by many of us who envy you your great diving experiences. And frankly, >I for one am amazed at anyone sticking to just one family - especially a >diver!! Even when I really tried to limit myself to one or two or ten... >families I would find some great looking shell not in those families or read an >article on the habits of...and I'm off, or over board or whatever. I started >with the intention of concentrating on a few families but trying for a >representative sample of each family. Well, now I guess it depends upon how you >define representative! I had a healthy collection of nerites but by no means >extensive, until I met (electronically) Jr. Powers and now I'm up to 65 >different species and always looking for more. The same happen with xenophora. >I had about five specimens, talked to Harry Berryman, read some of his stuff and >now I'm looking for the oddball and seldom offered species to finish off my list >of xenophora. I can go on with epitonium (Bruce Neville), cones, pecten, etc. >All of this because of Conch-L (thanks COA for your sponsorship). Its a great >community and we used to have flying pigs show up occasionally but I heard they >all died. Oh, my original families were strombus, aporrhais, and murex. I did >about 98% on the strombus and the aporrhais but the murex tend to lag behind. > >So here's hoping you get inundated with cypraea nuts who want to trade (also >sometime I first tried because of Conch-L). Again welcome, > >Tom in New Mexico, USA