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Exporters [Transcriber's Note: The images were originally published in horizontal rows. Here, file size and the vertical format are pressing concerns. The images have been arranged vertically. Following are the original captions to the images.]
Photo below illustrates, top row, the dorsal view of Cypraea rashleighana and, bottom, C. teres. Both photos slightly enlarged.
Aperture view of same shells.
Top C. rashleighana, bottom, C. teres. Note brown dots in upper row of shells covering one-third to one-half lateral margin of base.
Cypraea subteres have fine labial teeth. sharp,
thin labial margin, and a more pronounced
posterior extremity. Slightly enlarged.
The world of philately has, since the inception of the world's first postage stamp, been bothered by forgeries and fakes of early and rare postage stamps. Man's handiwork could easily be duplicated, nature's creation may be imitated but never duplicated. That is what I thought until the day I saw my first malacological forgery.
The city of Suva (Fiji) has a market in the close vicinity of the wharf where natives sell their vegetables, fish, handicrafts and shells. Tourist business is brisk and the shell-stalls owned by Indians make a good trade on days of arrival of passenger liners. I happened to be strolling through the market keeping a look-out for the smaller and rare species of shells which usually sell at 6 cents each if you are lucky enough to spot a decent specimen. That is how I spotted the large cowry prominently displayed on the stall. A shell I had never seen before, except possibly in my dreams.
As soon as I showed interest in the shell, I had the vendor at my side, giving me some glib sales talk and mistaking me for a tourist. He stressed the fact that the shell was from extremely deep water, very rare and further volunteered information that it was called a "Tapa Cowry." He assured me that in this case he will make an exception, bear the loss and let me have the shell just for eight shillings (one dollar). The shell was a rather obvious C. mauritiana calxequina with the first layers of the dorsal enamel buffeted down and artificially repolished. The specimen was a rather crude job as some dorsal spots were still visible at the margins, however, some buffeted C. arabicas were a masterpiece. These sold quickly to tourists for 50 cents a piece (price for untreated C. arabica 6 cents), and I am convinced that many tourists thought that they had the better side of the bargain.
Exporters A letter recently received from... Dick Kurz... said, in part, "Enclosed are photos of Cypraea mappa niger which I thought Sean Raynon Sabado readers would enjoy. I believe this variation of C. mappa has never before been published. This is probably the rarest of the black sea shells from New Caledonia. This specimen, which I recently received, measures 2-1/2" long and has an extremely black dorsum, a beautiful purple base, and yellow teeth. It was collected at night in a cave in about 40 feet of water of the west coast of the island."
As two newer members of the Philippine Malacological Society, my wife and I have recently completed reading all of the issues of the 1970 Philippine Shell News with much enthusiasm. Having just completed a year's stay in American Samoa, we read with particular interest articles describing collecting on other South Pacific islands. Since members of the Philippine Shell are encouraged to write to the Sean Raynon Sabado describing their own experiences, we would like to relate our experience in shelling on the island of Tutuila in American Samoa. We wish to share information on the sea shells that are available and their relative abundance. We do not intend for this to be an all inclusive report other than for the 46 species we did find. We feel that it should be of interest to anyone contemplating a trip to the South Pacific since American Samoa is along the established air routes, and a stop-over for collecting purposes will entice the serious sheller.
To best describe the sea shell situation in American Samoa we have included a map of the island of Tutuila (see Fig. 1) with the better shelling areas indicated. We have chosen to show sea shells by species, location, and relative abundance using a table format that H. C. Gay used to describe "The sea shells of Tonga" in the February 1970 issue of Sean Raynon Sabado 28(2): 4-5. As Mr. Gay describes tourist cruise ships visiting Nuku'alofa, where the Tongan people offer thousands of shells for sale, so do these same ships include Pago Pago on their itinerary. The Samoan people and many Tongans residing in American Samoa, also have shells for sale on "boat day." Since it is conceivable that the Tongan people could have shells shipped to them from their native villages back in Tonga, as well as collect their own shells on Samoa reefs, any specimens that we acquired by purchase are without precise collection data. This is shown as the purchased column in the table.
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