Tag Archives: Peterson Field Guide Shells

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SHELLS OF THE ATLANTIC COASTS & WEST INDIES: PETERSON FIELD GUIDE

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SHELLS OF THE ATLANTIC COASTS & WEST INDIES 

PETERSON FIELD GUIDE    Abbott / Morris   350pp

An excellent and comprehensive field guide which covers the area as thoroughly as one could wish. It’s not exactly a pocket book, and at 350 pages it’s quite a chubby paperback – but the sort of size you’d happily throw into a day-bag or backpack. This authoritative shell guide dates from 1947, with frequent reprints. Mine is a fourth edition (1995) – there may be a 2002 one.

Currently £18 from Amazon UK,  or new / used for around £7 (a bargain); and a great deal cheaper on Amazon US. Overall 4* reviews

Rolling Harbour rating *****

THE BOOK IN A CONCH SHELL

  • Numerous clear illustrative line drawings throughout (115, in fact)
  • 74 colour plates grouped together at the heart of the book, showing living creatures and a huge variety of shells – 780 in all
  • Introductory articles on collecting, preparing, arranging and naming shells; also classifications and measurements
  • The text comprises 800 brief but helpful family / species descriptions, with notes on habitat and other remarks
  • Bi-valves cover 120 pages; Gastropods a stonking 150 pages
  • The substantial illustrated core of the book has shell groups on the right-hand page, with ID and text references on the left. The system works very well, especially with the many shell types that are very similar
  • At the back there’s a useful ‘Conchological Glossary’ to help sort out the crenulates from the reticulates
  • A huge 30-page index that is both thorough and user-friendly
I personally found the illustration section very helpful as a first stop; then a trip to the text to confirm the description. I had no idea what a shell we recently found in a drawer might be, but it didn’t take long to nail the ID as a STOCKY CERITH a shell I’d never even heard of. First I found a very clear illustration of it, then turned to the text description which matched what I had in my hand. Overall, as a complete amateur, I found this book the best practical guide I have yet tried for shell identification – and I suspect more sophisticated shell-seekers will get a great deal out of it too.