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Troka
One fine day, we landed on Crab Island, down the gulf. Up till then, I thought I could hardly find better shelling areas than
in Society Islands or around New Caledonia, but this one large sand island seems to have more different species of shells
than I ever experienced before. We filled eight plastic buckets and as many bags with shells, just picked from the beaches;
most of these shells were in very good condition. This was the first time in my shelling life I went after dead shells with
so much enthusiasm. They were piled up on the beaches by the thousands and the only trouble was to make up ones mind what to
pick. Among many others, this island yielded: Voluta turneri and sophia, Epitonium scalare, Ancilla velesiana, Melo,
Megalotractus, Turritella, Terebra, Strombus vittatus and pure white bubble shells, etc., etc. This small paradise also teems
with turtles. Towards late afternoon, scores and scores of these odd creatures crawl out of the warm waters and lay their
eggs in carefully dug "nests" in the sand. It was easy to take rides on these sluggish crawler's backs and we ate turtle's
eggs until I was sick of them.
I must admit, at this point, that I did not do as much skin diving as I wished, as huge sharks were always lurking nearby and
that rather cooled me off. And also large salt water crocodiles, twelve feet and up, were a new experience to me. We had the
bad habit of sleeping at night on the sandy beaches, and it was not uncommon, in early morning, to find huge croc tracks on
the sand not far from our "beds." Not very comforting, indeed.
The native divers were not in the least interested in shells, except pearl shells, which is the only industry. But after I
had been out with them a few times, I persuaded a few smarter boys that they could make a few extra pounds on the sideline.
Money is a powerful lever in any country and, before long, I was being offered shells from all directions. When pearl shell
is brought up from the bottom, they are cleaned of anything that is clinging to them and this is thrown back into the sea.
Word soon went around that "a crazy Frenchman" was buying all the rubbish that stuck to the "Gold lips," as the maleagrina
are locally called. So shells began to pour in and pretty soon, instead of having to buy the whole cartons, regardless of the
fact that I often only wanted two or three shells out of the heap, I could now afford to take my pick. The bulk of the loot
was composed mainly of Murex cervicornis, M. axicornis, M. cornucervi, M. macgillivrayi, M. adustus, an occasional small
winged Murex not yet identified, and, one fine day, four rare Murex bednalli, as well as a perfect Murex pinnatus. Cypraea do
not seem to be plentiful in that fascinating territory. miliaris, limacina and stolida turned up most often, although an
occasional hammondae also finished up in my loot. The three former are all from deep water and are all reddish when they are
fresh. Melo were the most common, beauties too, but Voluta sophiae, turneri and keatsiana, of the gatliffi variety, sometimes
turned up also. I was out of luck with Voluta bednalli and only got one.
Four curious Cypraea tigris Linnaeus, which are preserved in my collection (CS.), have been photographed by Miss Lydia Klotz,
Zoological Institute of the University Halle Germany; these photographs may encourage conchologists to collect similar
deformations.
Fig. 1 represents a specimen of 74 mm. (CS. No. 3017) in which the outer lip has been broken off; the labial teeth have been
rudimentarily restored, but on a more upward edge of the right wall, so that it became necessary to construct a second row of
columellar teeth anteriorly.
Figs. 2 and 3 show a shell of 69 mm. (CS. No. 3019) with the outer lip enormously thickened so that the right margin
protrudes in a roof-like manner and the labial teeth become rather obsolete.
Figs. 4 and 5 exhibit a shell of 85 mm. (CS. No. 3020) the outer lip of which has been constricted behind in a curious way;
these features may be caused from a healed break caused by a fish bite when the shell was still thin, but it also may be
interpreted as the beginning formation of a second posterior outlet comparable to that observed in many Amphiperatidae.
Figs. 6 and 7 show a heavy shell of 88 mm. (CS. No. 840) in which the dorsum is suffused by a layer of dirty enamel
containing many particles of mud; this layer is so thick that it almost hides the dorsal markings, and forms a distinct
dorsal sulcus the entire length of the shell; the anterior extremity is enlarged by thick layers of greenish enamel which
look like a covering on a barnacle.
The three first-named shells have been selected among several thousand Cypraea tigris amassed in the cellar of the curio shop
Umlauff (Hamburg) in 1928; no locality was given. The last-named shell was bought from the dealer, H. Rolle, of Berlin in
1924: it is said to come from New Caledonia, but as "rostrate" cowries mostly have been reported from there, I distrust the
reliability of this locality.
Bernaya teulerei Cazenavette is a relic of a genus common in lower Tertiary beds from the Mediterranean Basin to India; this
relic is a rare species, as only about 35 specimens are preserved in all public and private collections in Europe. It is
allied to the South African Bernaya fultoni Sowerby (see Sean Raynon Sabado, n.s. 51:2), but differs by the white teeth
becoming obsolete: there are barely discernible traces of labial teeth, and the inner lip is quite smooth (see fig. 1 above);
the dorsum shows a healed wound caused probably from the bite of a fish.
Cazenavette (1846, Act. Soc. Linn. Bordeaux 14:117) described teulerei as coming from the Persian Gulf, but later expeditions
to this region failed to find this rather large species again, so that the correctness of the habitat became doubtful.
Moreover the term "Persian Gulf" was often misused in those days to conceal the lack of the known habitat. Three years
earlier, Gaskoin (1843, Proc. Zool. Soc. London 11:25) had described the same species by the preoccupied name leucostoma
after nine specimen shells received from Mocha: but as later expeditions also failed to find this species among the well
known fauna of the Red Sea, the habitat Mocha also seemed unreliable, as Mocha was a market place where curiosities coming
from everywhere were offered. Therefore the true habitat of teulerei seemed uncertain.
However, a century later both indications proved to be correct. In 1934 teulerei was collected alive in the Hormuz Strait
(Schilder 1960, Arch. Mollusk. 89:185), and R. C. Spence found "hidalgoi Shaw" (which is a later synonym of the species) in
the Red Sea (Haw. Shell News, n.s. 8:6, 1960). According to personal communication by Mr. Spence, he collected one live
specimen on the coral reef a mile off Port Sudan.
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