plankton. They are shaped hke ice cream cones, anchors, left-hand spirals 

 and many other odd shapes. Some may be an inch long. 



You may get larval Cypraea, called "Echinospira larvae." They are 

 beautiful spiny, glassy, clear, flat coils, with the baby embryo tucked deep 

 into the spiral. Compare the right-handed larvae with the protoconchs 

 you find on adult shells and you may be able to identify them, at least to 

 genus. 



To preserve your planktonic shells, add some alcohol or formalin to 

 the entire haul. When everything has died, the shells will settle to the 

 bottom and you can carefully pour off the lighter animals. It is not prac- 

 tical to remove the animals from the shells, so keep them in a small jar 

 with 50 percent alcohol or very weak formalin. Add a pinch of borax or 

 soda to prevent acid from forming. — Hawaiian Shell News. 



Collecting Minute Mollusks from Marine Algae. Many minute mollusks 

 live in marine algae rather than in sand. Instead of sorting through sand 

 for beach-worn specimens it is often much more worth while to collect the 

 animals alive directly from algae. Though some minute species live only 

 in sand rather than in algae it does not seem to be generally realized how 

 few actually do. 



Mollusks show a certain amount of specificity to different kinds of 

 marine plants. Filamentous green algae that form turfs, such as Cladophora 

 and Cladophoropsis in the tropics and subtropics, support a large and varied 

 fauna of minute species as well as juveniles of others which survive only 

 elsewhere as adults, like Pinna. In the West Indies various red algae in 

 the genus Bostrychia (= "Amphibia") are abundant on mangrove roots 

 and support a distinctive assemblage of species, many of which seem not 

 to live elsewhere. In temperate seas certain mollusks live only on large 

 brown algae like Fucus. Gulf weed (Sargassum) also supports a rather dis- 

 tinctive but small group of species. More examples could be given, but 

 these will indicate the kinds of algae which should be examined when 

 collecting mollusks. 



A distinct group of species is usually also to be found on the leaves of 

 marine "grasses" such as Zostera, Thalassia, Cymodocea, Ruppia, and 

 Posidonia. The snails often do not feed on the leaves themselves but rather 

 on the epiphytic algae and other growths. 



To collect the mollusks several handfuls of algae (or "grass") should 

 be placed in a bucket and pulled apart into little pieces. Then the bucket 

 is filled with fresh water. Most of the mollucks will drop to the bottom, 

 leaving only some of the byssally attached clams. The pieces of algae near 

 the top of the bucket are removed piece by piece, then the water is slowly 

 poured oflF so as to leave only the residue in the bottom. More water is 

 added and the process is repeated until the residue is fairly free from algae 

 and detritus. The residue, although it looks unpromising, is then put in a 

 small dish of sea water to revive the mollusks. If a microscope is at hand 

 the collector using this technique for the first time will probably be sur- 



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