| Coquillages de Polynesie
By
Bernard
Salvat & Claude Rives
1975, Les Editions du
Pacific, hard cover, cloth binding with dust jacket, stitched binding,
392 pages, page size 7.5 by 10.5 inches (19.5 by 27cm), color photos on
almost each page (varying size) as well as maps, charts, etc., French
text
This is a truly
magnificent book and it is one, that as the years go by, is harder
and harder to find. The first part of the book gives
us an excellent introduction to shells and shell life and a special
look at the shells of Polynesia and the part that shells have played in
the Polynesian culture. The balance and the greater part of the book is
an identification guide to 446 species of shells that inhabit the
waters of these islands. Many of these shells are
photographed live in their habitat and the quality of the plates
borders on being very good to being excellent. This book can
be considered as much of a coffee table book as well as being a guide
to these shells and to these islands. This edition is in French only and it is used, it is though the best copy that I've seen and can easily pass as new.
There is a smaller, paper covered edition, "Shells of Tahiti" that is
in English, but the smaller size diminishes the beauty of the
photographs that you have in this edition. This is a used copy but apart from some wear on the dust jacket it can pass as new. Included with the book is a dictionary of French-English, English-French shell terms.
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