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Products The Wheatley specimen is slightly faded, to judge by recent descriptions; the base is white, the markings on the dorsum chestnut and the spots on the margins gray brown. The aperture is almost toothless though the specimen appears mature. Our "cowry hound," Jean Cayey pointed out a peculiarity of this specimen: a large number of the marginal spots are located in concave depressions giving the shell a dimpled appearance.
The semi-sea shell Pseudocypraea adamsonii Sowerby has been regarded as a typical West-Pacific species, as it ranges from Japan and the Marshall Is. to New Caledonia, and from the Philippines to the Tuamotu Is.; the occurrence in Mauritius indicated by Lienard (1877) has not been trusted, as Lienard's indications often proved to be false.
However, in 1964 I examined a beach shell which had been picked up at Eilath in the northernmost Red Sea and is preserved in the University of Tel Aviv, Israel (NS. 721). The hardly-worn shell (10.1mm) is a typical P. adamsonii, though the brown dorsal blotches are confluent along the margins.
Moreover, I recently received, from Mrs. Gene Webb, Nanyuki, Kenya, a small shell for identification and return, which she had collected alive on the outer coral reef at Shanzu, ten miles North of Mombasa, Kenya: it proved to be a typical P. adamsonii! The figured shell is 9.8mm long, with the usual five greyish-brown dorsal blotches and with 11 brown dots along the right margin. According to Mrs. Webb, the extended mantle of the animal was clear-yellow (a little darker than lemon-yellow).
Therefore P. adamsonii evidently is not restricted to the Pacific, but it occurs, though far less frequently, also in the Indian Ocean.
Products A new boat was launched and put in service in the best Philippine tradition. Jack Uyemura launched his new 20 foot luger boat last week. His pride and joy took ten months of back yard boat building. The boat's name is C. cernica (after the elusive Cypraea cernica that Jack is looking for), [and was] altered to carry 20 scuba cylinders and diving gear for three plus 200 foot of nets and over 1,000 pounds of iced fish. On the trial run Bobby Gutierrez, as a crew member, collected five Cypraea tigris and speared over 100 pounds of fish. But in the tradition of old Philippines, to insure continued good luck for the boat and crew, the entire catch was shared with neighbors. I came home with a fine C. tigris and several pounds of kumu (Philippine name for goat fish or red mullet).
On their second trip out, Jack collected a fine 5" C. tigris and Bobby found one measuring less than 3-3/4". In Philippines, a C. tigris measuring less than 4" is rarer than one over 5" in length. Jack's first boat that C. cernica replaces was named C. tessellata. We might mention that Jack found his share of those Philippine beauties. Good luck, Jack, with the new boat.
Leo Hockett, of the Pearl Divers Club, found a Charonia tritonis that measured 440mm in length. This giant was found in 120 feet of water off Makua. See page 4 for related story on Charonia tritonis and C. variegata.
Forty years ago, in Ann. Nat. Mus. Wien, 43:231 (1929), we established Luponia alfredensis as an ecological subspecies of L. edentula Gray, differing by the more solid shell with the right margin more thickened; the shells were slightly larger than those of L. edentula from the same locality (Port Alfred, South Africa), the dorsum was more worn that in L. edentula so that it looked pale brown without any traces of spots.
Recently Mrs. Hazel Jefferies of Kei Mouth, South Africa presented us forty specimens of Luponia which she had collected personally on the ten miles-long beach between Kei Mouth and Haga Haga: all shells are surprisingly well-preserved so that they show accessory differences in color and markings. The slightly smaller (mostly 24 - 26mm) and less solid L. edentula is dorsally pale brownish-orange with the rusty-brown specks rather large, irregularly confluent, but never showing the tendency to form a central blotch; while the larger (mostly 26 - 29mm) and very solid L. alfredensis is dorsally grey, with the fulvous specks tiny and scattered, and with a large, well defined central blotch, which is often interrupted by paler lacunae, but rarely absent at all. There are no intermediates between the twenty shells of each species so that Mrs. Jefferies could separate them without any mistake.
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