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Caroline Is.:
Recently Mr. C. N. Cate presented me two walkeri from Moen Is. in the Truk Is. (coll. Schilder No. 17135 and 17136); they
formerly belonged to a series of fifteen similar shells dredged by R. Willis in the harbour in January 1962. These two shells
are "pellucid" like the dead glossy cowries dredged in Honolulu harbour, and exhibit a similar white chalk in the aperture:
there, the conditions of preservation in the harbour of Moen Is. must be about equal to those in Honolulu. The specimens
undoubtedly belong to walkeri (surabajensis) and not to bregeriana: the discovery of this far-off population of walkeri in
the central Caroline Is. is not very surprising, as other typically Malayan cowry species also spread to western Micronesia,
e.g. Erronea ovum Gmelin and E. onyx Linnaeus to Palau and Guam respectively.
Northern Melanesia:
Mrs. K. Matcott of Mooloolaba, Queensland informed me by letter in March 1963, that she possesses a "surabajensis" from New
Britain; as I have never examined the shell personally, the reliability of this indication seems to need confirmation.
Fiji:
Mr. W. O. Cernohorsky has quoted walkeri bregeriana from New Caledonia and Fiji, in his recently published Catalogue of
Living Cypraeidae (Frankfurt-Main 1963). In fact, since 1962 at least eight bregeriana have been collected in Fiji, all off
the West Coast (Nadi and Momi) facing towards the chief habitat of bregeriana, New Caledonia; especially Mr. A. Jennings has
dredged, at the islands Wading, Akuilau, and Namotu (20 miles off Nadi) several dead and living specimens, one oliviform
shell included of which I could examine the radula (Mr. Cernohorsky presented me a shell from Momi, coll. Schilder No. 17154,
which is 17 mm. long). All specimens show the typical orange base, often darker brown in the center of the inner lip, and the
peculiar white specks on base and margins, but they are much smaller (16 to 21 mm., mean 18 mm.) than typical bregeriana from
New Caledonia (20 to 33 mm., mean 25 mm.). These shells look like a population displaced far from its original habitat in New
Caledonia, where bregeriana is less rare, to an area with less favorable environments, as it is in the two dwarf Erosaria
ocellata Linnaeus from Tjilanat Eureun, South West Java widely separated from their Indian relations (see 1938, Prodrome, p.
138).
South East New Guinea:
If bregeriana could spread from New Caledonia to Fiji, it probably also could spread to North West: therefore I now do not
doubt its occurrence in Joanett Is., Louisiade Archipelago, from which locality Smith (1888, Journ. de Conchyl. 36:313) has
described three bregeriana of 21 to 22 mm.
The indications of habitat: Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Victoria, New Zealand, and Tahiti evidently are erroneous.
The appended map clearly shows the advancement of our knowledge concerning the distribution of Erronea walkeri since World
War II. It should encourage malacologists to further research.
Having a special interest in mollusks of the West African coastline, I have inquired as to why shells from that area are
often so difficult to obtain. The above pictures graphically show the reason.
The natives of the area seem to have a real passion for the use of sea shells as personal decorations, many collectors'
treasures being used as ornaments.
It should be the Malacological trend to consolidate nomenclature and not separate, and separation should be done only if the
characteristics of the new species or subspecies are constant in large series (not 16 shells) of shells, and peculiar to the
new subspecies only. This does not apply at all in the case of C. chinensis amiges and the situation of tagging a new name to
every ecological variation, is getting ridiculous. I am convinced that my article will not stop Mr. Cate from naming another
dozen new subspecies before giving up his malacological hobby, however, it is only fair, that if we have to read Cate's
inconclusive arguments in favor of his new subspecies, we should be permitted to express our own arguments against accepting
his new subspecies. Furthermore, it stimulates scientific thinking, and will show to Mr. Cate that we do not accept every
subspecies he dishes out from his conveyor belt.
In The Veliger, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 74 77, Crawford Cate made an attempt to restore the old subspecific name amiges to current
usage. It is unfortunate that he based his differentiating comparison on specimens from the Philippines only, and did not
take into account specimens of C. chinensis (which the Schilders call C. chinensis variolaria Lamarck, 1810) from Mauritius.
The morphological relationship, despite the greater distance from Philippines, is closer by far between variolaria
(Mauritius) and amiges (Philippines), then it is between C. chinensis, sensu stricto (Philippines) and amiges.
As Crawford Cate pointed out in his article, Melvill & Standen's specimen of amiges was a single, dead shell of unknown
locality. Melvill and Standen's contention that amiges could have come from the Philippines Archipelago was a mere
presumption and by no means zoogeographical reasoning, for the specimen could have just as well come from Mauritius. Once the
locality of a holotype of a species or subspecies is unknown, it is useless to guess where its origin might have been.
The Schilders in their nomenclatural system accept (4) races or subspecies of C. chinensis, which are as follows: C.
chinensis chinensis Gmelin, 1791, (32/61, 17:16). C. chinensis violacea Rous, 1905 (31/63, 15:15), C. chinensis variolaria
Lamarck, 1810 (32/64, 15.16), and C. chinensis sydneyensis Schilder & Schilder, 1938 (35/63, 15:14). The figures in brackets
signify the following: Length in mm., width as a % of length, mean number of labial teeth as reduced to a shell 25mm. in
length: mean number of columellar teeth also reduced (see Schilder, Zool. Anz. Bd. 92, H. 3/4, 1930). The Schilders'
statistical figures were obtained by personally examining 250 specimens of C. chinensis from different localities.
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Item shell inlayed shells anklets capis oliva shell leis earing mop sea urchin black lip shell inlay shell tiles natural fashion jewelry trocca silver mouth tortella barnacle hair accessories capis lamps rapa - rapana nautilus lambis.
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