Tempting Trochus

From the Caroline Islands, that fine powder of islands lying in the West Pacific, the Japanese sampans point southward. They cross the Equator, weave through the maze of the East Indian Archipelago toward Australia's New Guinea and North Australia. In the shallow waters of the Coral Sea along the Great Barrier Reef, 1,000 mi. from home, they find what they want but it is in Australian waters. Long since, the Australian Government has protested to Tokyo via London against their poaching. But Japan had not the heart to discourage such energetic citizens. Last week Australia got ready a fleet of fast motorboat patrols to catch the heavy-engined sampans from the north.

What the sampans go for is the trochus. The trochus or top shell is a marine rhipidoglossate mollusk with a multispiral operculum. Its shell is a simple cone and snail-wise it carries it on its back as it moves slowly along in shallow water. The shell is good for buttons, cheaper than pearl shell.

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