The Shell Book

Happily inscribed and signed by the author, The Shell Book is a comprehensive field guide for conchology, covering all families and species of land and sea mollusks. It is also an accessible manual of useful and sometimes personal observations about these shelled animals. In the preface, the author notes that a good field guide “must be an outgrowth of extensive acquaintance with living mollusks in their natural surroundings,” and she conveys this close relationship with nature in every chapter. Intermingled with technical biological data is lively prose about habitats, behavior, interrelationships, and the value of mollusks in the modern world. Interspersed in the book are helpful and often beautiful photo plates to illustrate the species in each section’s chapters. The auther, Julia Rogers (1866-1911), had a master’s degree in botany from Cornell University, was a teacher, lecturer, and writer.