Indo-Pacific are the cone shells (Conus), the sting of which is as powerful as the bite of a rattlesnake. Although the beautiful cone shells are among the commonest of Indo-Pacific mollusks, the total number of authentic cases of death from their sting is surprisingly small. No American species have been recorded as harmful to man but, because all cones possess the necessary apparatus, it would be wise to be careful in handling American specimens over two inches in size.
The number of cone stings is few because of the shy nature of the animal. Invariably a snail will withdraw into its shell when disturbed and, unless the cone is held quietly in the palm of the hand for some minutes, there is little likelihood of the collector being stung. The apparatus for the injection of the venom into the skin of the victim is contained in the head of the animal. Bite, rather than sting, is perhaps more descriptive of the operation. The long, fleshy proboscis or snout is extended from the head and jabbed against the skin. Within this tube are a number of hard, hollow stingers, as long and slender as needles. These are actually modified radular teeth, commonly used in other snails to rasp their food. Under a high-powered lens the teeth of the cone shell resemble miniature harpoons. As the teeth are thrust into the skin, a highly toxic venom flows from a large poison gland located farther back in the head, out through the mouth, and into the wound through the hollow tube of the tooth. In some cases, death has taken place in four to five hours after the patient was stung. Not all cases are serious. Andrew Garrett, a famous shell collector of the latter half of the nineteenth century, reported that he was stung by a tulip cone that caused a “sharp pain not unlike the sting of a wasp.”
While in recent years the cone shells have received perhaps an undue amount of notoriety as dangerous creatures, they are best known as an aristocratic family of beautiful shells which have been favorites for years among the most discriminating of collectors. For hundreds of years the sound of the auctioneer’s gavel has been heard at the sale of valuable collections of seashells, but no shell has created such fevered interest as the Glory-of-the-Seas cone. Its present-day value is in the neighborhood of $400 to $600. This species seems to possess the ideal combination of features which brings high prices—beauty, size, rarity and, above all, mystery or legend. Although the legends connected with the Glory-of-the-Seas are for the most part untrue, the mere mention of its name will invariably cause the blood pressure of shell collectors to rise.
The first published reference to the Glory-of-the-Seas was in 1757. Today the whereabouts of each of the twenty-three specimens is known. The most famous finding was made by the renowned shell collector, Hugh Cuming, in 1838 when he found three specimens at low tide on the reefs at Jacna on Bohol Island in the Philippines. The myth has often been repeated
