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Philippine shellcraft
First Gray's Beach. For the past several months I have been saving the data on Gray's Beach for inclusion in the shelling
areas on Oahu's north shore. In researching the area I could find no Gray's Beach. Cliff Weaver set me straight. Gray's Beach
is a part of Waikiki extending from just in front of the Halekulani Hotel towards Fort DeRussy. This area was, when known as
Gray's Beach, one of the best collecting areas on all Oahu. In addition to the shells previously reported for the areas
off-shore from Waikiki, the following Cypraea have been found in the relatively shallow waters of Gray's Beach: C. carneola,
granulata, lynx, semiplota, sulcidentata, talpa, teres, tessellata, and vitellus: a very impressive list of shells. Most of
these shells are still found in the deeper water off-shore and in recent months several have been found by shallow water
collectors.
The second omission was the existence of a fossil bed in the Kahuku Point area. Professor Ostergaard, in his pamphlet "Fossil
Marine Mollusks of Oahu" (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin No. 51), reported a fossil shell area from near the radio station
inland for about 1-1/2 miles to the "precipitous walls of a limestone bluff 100 feet high, evidently a former shore line."
Ostergaard found fossil specimens of Cymatium pileare, Cypraea caputserpentis, Turbo intercostalis, and Septifers kraussii in
this fossil bed. Conus tulipa has also been reported in fossil form from Kahuku. By the way, Bulletin 51 is still in print
and can be obtained from the Bishop Museum.
So much for the "left out" department.
The area discussed this month is definitely a lee shore during the trade wind season. Our average trade winds of fifteen to
eighteen miles per hour will cause little trouble with waves or surf. However, intensified trades of up to 35 miles per hour
can cause hazardous conditions to develop, even inside the fringing reef. Occasionally huge ocean swells are encountered on
the north shore, even with little or no wind. These are usually the result of mid-ocean storms.
The spurca from Tel-Aviv rather agree in size with the specimens coming from the entire Mediterranean, whereas the lurida and
pyrum are unusually small though they have been collected on the same beach as spurca: the reaction of different species to
the same environments evidently is different.
According to Bergmann's rule that animals grow larger in colder climates than in warmer regions, lurida and pyrum are large
in Southern France and in the Adriatic Sea (10 to 12 [deg.] Centigrade in February), and decrease in the Tyrrhenian Sea (13
[deg.] C), in North West Africa (14 [deg.] C), and in the Eastern Mediterranean (16 to 17 [deg.] C); in these five areas the
medians of lurida are 43, 37, 37, 34, 34 mm, of pyrum 36, 36, 33, 32, 31 mm respectively, while in spurca the median varies
from 25 to 28 mm independently from the temperature of the sea.
The well known cowry Lyncina arenosa Gray (1824) was renamed schilderorum by Iredale (1939) because the name arenosa was
preoccupied by arenosa Dillwyn (1823). Recently Wagner C. Abbott, in Van Nostrand's Standard Catalog of Shells (1964, p. 41
and 62), expressed their opinion that Dillwyn's arenosa is "invalid" because it is a "nude name," so that arenosa Gray should
be restored. However, Dillwyn (1823, Index Lister Hist. Conch., p. 33) expressly referred the name arenosa (given by Solander
in an unpublished manuscript only) to a figure published by Lister (1688, Hist. Synops. Meth. Conchyl., vol. 4, pl. 685, fig.
32) which represents a large turdus. Therefore arenosa Dillwyn (1823) is not a numen nudum, and the specific name
schilderorum must be adopted. I hope this note will help to avoid further confusion.
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