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CHAPTER VI
How to Know
American Seashells
The satisfaction of gradually becoming master of a study and the enjoyment
of devoting a full interest to one of the many fields of natural history,
whether it be wild flowers, butterflies or seashells, are the two strongest
motivations among naturalists in their search for new facts and additional
specimens. "Knowing seashells" is not so much a state of knowledge, attained
after so many years of study, as it is a continuous process of adding to our
store of information and experience. Through personal observation, by tak-
ing advantage of what others have discovered and recorded, and by increas-
ing our ability to identify species, we gradually become familiar with our
mollusks.
Whafs the name of that shell? Is it rare or covnnon? How does it
live? Where cai2 1 find more and better specimens? These are four of the
most frequently asked questions among shell collectors. Because people who
are incurably or only mildly "shell-shocked" are continually asking for the
names of shells, over three fourths of this book is devoted to the problem of
recognizing and naming our American seashells.
To know the name of a shell is in many ways to know the object itself.
What we may gain in observation of the shell, the animal which builds it or
the habits of the creature, we can, with its correct name, compare w^th the
findings made by other students. "So this is Sozon's Cone!" transforms the
shell in your collection into an object of rarity and opens the door to fasci-
nating^ accounts of fatal, venomous cone shells or the tales of bygone shell
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