NEW YORK SHELL CLUB NOTES 
Page 2 January 1978 No. 238 
REFLECTIONS OF A NON-SHELL-COLLECTING SHELL COLLECTOR 
| Ernie Stark 
up member of the New York Shell Club 
) who does not collect shells and 
who has at most only a passing interest in the existence of phylum 
Mollusca. If this seems a strange confession, consider that we 
live in an age when many kinds of deviants are emerging dec their 
closets. Why not the non-shell-collecting shell collector? 
My raison d'étre as a pseudo-sheller is that my wife, Cherita, is 
blessed with a consuming passion for collecting, cleaning, evalu- 
ating, identifying and storing any mollusc that comes within reach. 
It is my function in her shell-collecting life to transport us to 
places where the reach can be extended, the grasp rewarded and 
heaven achieved. It's not all altruism on my part, however. What 
I get out of it is an appreciative wife (which is almost enough) 
and an opportunity to be at what Rachel Carson referred to as "the 
edge of the sea." To me, the edge of a big body of water is one of 
the nicest places in the world to be. (Minimum size requirement 
for "big" is that there be water to the horizon and that somebody 
make waves.) I like the smell of the water and the look of the 
Shore. I like to sit and stare at the surf. I like to lie on my 
back and listen. Especially, I like to watch the birds: shorebirds 
and gulls and terns and geese and ducks and loons and grebes and... 
When we're at a shoreline, I sometimes help Cherita with the col- 
lecting. It usually starts out as a social or husbandly gesture 
and once in a while I get caught up in the excitement of the chase. 
With the luck of the perennial beginner, I often manage to come up 
with the find of the day, mostly when we're at a vacation spot 
where Cherita doesn't know the territory. 
A few years ago we were "snorkeling" at low tide off North Bimini 
in the Bahamas. The primary objective of our day was. to collect 
Cassis tuberosa. It was pretty easy for me -- the water was only 
inches deep at midday, and all I had to do was crawl around on 
my hands and knees like a snake in the eel grass, fully dressed for 
protection from the sun (hat, long-sleeved shirt, slacks and sneak- 
ers) and look through my face mask for meaningful shapes. Accord- 
ing to Cherita's meticulous records, these were some of the "shapes" 
he “Haynes ve ie hol rane bag that day: Cassis tuberosa 
ing Helmet), Cassis flammea (Flame Helmet), Strombus gigas (Queen 
Conch), Strombus raninus (Hawk-wing Conch) | here eus @eseas) 
angulata (West Indian Chank) and Fasciolaria tulipa (True Tulip). 
Another time, in Tobago, using the services of a 
King, we went out at night to find Voluta Sc ee es 
they were at 6-8 feet depths, and with the powerful light of the 
lantern which was secured to the prow of his boat, he and I snor- 
keled and searched while Cherita sat in the boat with Charles! two 
nephew assistants and worried about me. I'd never snorkeled at 
night before or since. It was a beautiful experience, with the add- 
c Satisfaction of delivering some new items to Cherita's collec- 
bh on. Elsewhere on Tobago, during a daylight search in a colony of 
urex brevifrons, the principal collecting tool was bare feet. The 
peste is in murky shallow water, and the most efficient method of 
ocating the shells is to step here and there very, very carefully 
and to pick up any sharp or unusual object that your foot touches. 
There is at least one paid- 
(and the Long Island Shell Club 
