food for many of the larger undersea creatures, so one of their
greatest talents is hiding. Approaching danger, whether from
octopus, fish or man, arouses caution in a small mollusk and it
becomes as inconspicuous as it can. This can be pretty inconspicuous,
as the novice conchologist learns early in his search.

REMEMBER - by all means, don't be a landlubber. Get into the water.
No matter whether you go shelling up North, down South, in the West
or in the Tropics, you won't get any satisfaction (or value) from
collecting dead shells washed up on a beach. To build a good
collection, you should take your mollusks alive, then clean and
prepare them yourself. (More about that later.) You won't find
live ones unless you go where they live.

[figure captions]

CONUS SPURIUS
"ALPHABET CONE"

CYRTOPLEURA COSTATA
"ANGEL WING"

TEREBRADISLOCATA
"ATLANTIC AUGER"

MUREX DILECTUS
"LACE MUREX"

EPITONIUM HUMPHREYSI
"HUMPHREY'S WENTLETRAP"