NEW YORK SHELL CLUB NOTES No. 244 September 1978 Page 3 
and the procedures through which it acquires rocesses atalogs 
and stores specimens. They had taken thé sa Sei to areunke fer dis- 
play trays of shells -- the subjects of current projects -- along 
with the literature, maps and other items of ett they were us- 
ing to develop, from the specimens, information of scientific value. 
President Veronica Johns, in borrowing the idea of the tour from the 
Long Island Shell Club, felt that for any member who had never been 
behind the scenes in a museum, this introduction would be a broaden- 
ing experience of both interest and value. Amateur conchologists 
make many contributions to the progress of professional investiga- 
tion, and she hoped, in arranging the tour, that newly-informed 
members will become more interested in curating their collections 
for eventual scientific usefulness, and be better able to recognize 
opportunities to contribute to the Museum's work with mollusks. 
Our guides invited their audiences to name families of genera of 
special interest to them, and pulled out many a drawer from the de- 
partment's storage "cans" to provide a close look at the Museum's 
collections, and arrangement, of the requested shells. The differ- 
ence between the old and later labels made clear today's emphasis on 
data -- not only date and locality, but any additional observations 
that give indications as to how a given species goes about its life. 
Milton Werner, Recording Sec'y. 
COME TO THE KEYS! 
Margaret Teskey 
Box 273, Big Pine Key, Florida 33043 
I have accompanied or directed umpteen lots of fellow shellers to 
one of my favorite sites, the ancient rock quarry on Crawl Key, some 
four miles north of Marathon and bordering U.S. 1. This saline hole 
was dug for railroad fill and ballast in the early days of the cen- 
tury and will in the near or distant future be placed off limits, 
judging from the amount of development going on around it. 
Its underwater ledges are crowded with stones rolled from above, and 
both stones and ledges are riddled with burrows, the reason for this 
report. For said burrows are made by a mussel all shell books list 
as "rare" or "unusual" - Botula fusca Gmelin, 1791. 
This date-shaped bivalve bears a silky brown periostracum that does 
not flake off as does that of other mussels; until disturbed, the 
animal extrudes a frilly brown mantle. And finally, while all of the 
books list the size as one-half to three-quarters of an inch, speci- 
mens from Crawl Key reach the giant size of one and three-quarters 
inches! Seldom do I return without one or more boulders (Pleistocene 
coral, usually) of lugging size to break in my bench vise; always I 
am rewarded with two to a dozen fine specimens. 
fellow shellers, and stop to snorkel a spell in 
So come to the Keys, 
@ r species abounding there should not be 
rawl Key Quarry. Two other sp 1791 which also bores in the 
overlooked: Petricola lapicida Gmelin, 
U h h [ly at a higher level and not in such num- 
ee bee Regge cr Lamarck, 1819, which 
bers as does Botula, and Pseudoc 
you'll note as bumps beneath your feet, needing to be kicked or 
hacked loose. Not pretty, but a prize. 
——— es 
