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Decoration
Decoration Pago Pago Harbor is a shelling area with similar reef conditions but one which lacks pounding waves. Also many areas have been dredged to about 15 feet with the material being used to construct the coastal road years ago. Reefs extend from the entrance down both sides of the harbor nearly 2 miles.
The waters are relatively quiet and sea shells abound in several places. For me, the most productive was the reef immediately in front of the Pago Intercontinental Hotel and the adjacent Utulei reef.
In analyzing the table (page 11) several aspects require further comment. These are included by species as follows.
C. argus. We did not collect any live specimens although, on several beaches, eroded specimens could be found. We tried in vain, but C. argus hides [in] its habitat well. We did acquire four specimens in collector's condition from native sellers.
C. asellus. In nearly a year, we had collected only three live specimens. Then one day at Utulei reef in about a foot of water and no more than 10 feet from shore, we collected eight specimens in about 2 minutes. So many were found here in a subsequent trip that it necessitated choosing the better specimens. Thinking that this might be a breeding aggregation because a few were on egg masses, we did not disturb the area further.
C. bistrinotata, C. cicercula and C. globulus. These we comment on as a group because of their conchological similarities. These "chick pea" sea shells defied our pursuit as no live individuals were collected. However, fresh beach specimens could be collected with a fair amount of regularity at Utulei beach.
C. cribraria. This is another sea shell that eluded us although other collectors found several immaculate live specimens. As beach specimens this sea shell was more in evidence.
Decoration The original specimen is now in the British Museum (Natural History) (ex W. J. Broderip collection) and the same institution acquired another in 1866 when it bought Hugh Cuming's collection. Miss Jane Saul, the nineteenth-century cowry specialist, also had one and this is now in the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology. Frans van Heukelom acquired one in 1858 and it is now in the Zoological Museum, Amsterdam. None of these shells was localized and it was not until 1882 that a localized one was recorded: this was supposed to have come from Warrior Reef, Torres Strait, off the New Guinea coast. A Mr. Hargraves had obtained it from the captain of a pearling vessel (J. Allan, 1956, Cowry Shells of World Seas, p. 110); and Dr. J. C. Cox, a well-known Sydney conchologist bought it from Hargraves about 1881. In 1917 Messrs. Sowerby & Fulton, the London shell dealers, sold it to Philippe Dautzenberg, on behalf of Cox, for 75 pounds and it is now in the Brussels Natural History Museum. On two or three occasions during the last century Cypraea valentia was auctioned publicly: van Heukelom bought his at the sale of T. G. van Lidth de Jeude's collection in 1858 but the selling price is unknown; one owned by John Dennison, whose collection was auctioned in 1865, was sold to the dealer Bryce M. Wright for 40 pounds (but he paid 42 pounds for Dennison's Cypraea gutatta Gmelin). Its present commercial value is now very much higher as Mr. Clover would ruefully admit and should another come on the market it would probably make a world-record price for any shell. Now that the Prince Cowry has been found again the list of long-lost rarities has been reduced by one; but that one-headed the list for a very long time. For allowing me to publish this note and for providing the illustrations, I am indebted to Mr. Clover.
Ed. Note: This is the first of a three part series on the author's search for Cypraea nivosa.
Shells are indeed where you find them. And sometimes they are where you don't find them. This is why I called the Ranong area of Thailand the "never, never land". Well, almost "never never" at any rate.
Children of the primary schools serving the younger generation of Thailand are encouraged by their teachers to bring "nature specimens" to class. They come to school clutching samples of flora and fauna they have gathered from the sea or from the jungle fringing their villages. A flower; a pretty leaf; a grubby piece of coral from a nearby reef; a faded shell or two washed up on some sandy beach; and, occasionally, a fresh specimen plucked from a rocky bay or lagoon. It could be a sparklng Cypraea lamarcki, pretty C. isabella or a plump C. arabica, or it could also be -- believe it or not -- a delicately patterned specimen of C. nivosa. If so it would not be the first time for on one or two occasions during the past few years, a youngster has been known to have brought such a shell to class, blissfully unaware, as was his teacher, that many a collector would give his right arm to own one of these rare shells.
Ranong is a small Thai town located a stone's throw from the Burmese border (see maps below). In fact, the twinkling lights of Victoria Point in Burma cast their reflections upon the silty waters emptying from the Packchan River that flows between the mangrove islands and shoals off Ranong.
It was towards one of these islands that we headed as we traversed the shallows, sand bars, and mud banks in our small craft. The shelling prospects looked disappointing to say the least. Murky waters, strong currents, and muddy, inhospitable mangrove swamps. Also, because of our close proximity to the Burmese border, Burmese patrol boats have a disconcerting habit of pouncing upon unidentified craft that might inadvertently stray across the ill defined sea boundary and then ask questions later.
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