Other Animals:
Audubon,
Bartram's crow,
Carving a calf's head,
Cook's bear,
Darwin's fish,
Darwin's goats,
Doctor Lobster,
Peacocks,
Paddlefish,
The cat who loved shoes,
The rat,
Trout fishing,
Directory.
Florida:
Everglades,
Fictional mounds,
Florida in twenty twenty,
Indian mounds,
Matecumbe,
Not the Florida you imagine,
Pete Gustafson,
Phillippi creek,
River of grass,
Warm Mineral Springs,
Directory.
Other places other times:
Anvil,
Archeomythology
Ashfall (Nebraska),
Ben,
Carolina,
Cook's Indians,
Cotton,
Corn,
eb,
Fence post,
RC colas,
Vermillion,
Directory.
******
Walking along the strand of beach
At dusk, on Siesta Key's spit
Of Gulf-side land,
Not too far from downtown Sarasota
We came across tracks in the sand.
A tracing of several distinct line(s),
Straight like tunneling of a mole (or gopher)
As they burrow blindly on,
Just below the surface,
Leaving a humped ridge as they go.
The sand was raised
Just enough to be easily seen
But the "tracks"
Were only about a half inch across.
They seemed to emerge
From the water's edge
And took a path
That was away
From the low-tide mark
And towards the high-tide line
Of demarcation on the beach.
Each track was anywhere
from two to six feet in length.
There was no perceptive movement
At either terminus of the tract
And in the beginning,
It could not be determined
In which direction the animal
That was creating
This tunnel was headed.
Taking my pocket knife
And running the blade
The length of the track,
It was found that there was no resistance
Starting from the water's edge
But at the other end,
A hard object was found.
With a flick of the blade,
A shell was revealed,
An olive some inch and half long
And about half inch in diameter.
On being discovered,
The mollusk retreated into his(?) shell.
These were the lettered olive
With distinctive markings
That look much like writing
On the shell surface.
However, the markings
Are not on the surface
But are a continuous coloration
Well imprinted into the shell body.
The white or albino olive
Is often found in this area
But this particular group
Was exclusively lettered.
In a matter of minutes,
Some three dozen were collected
And placed in a plastic bag
For transport home.
The largest lettered olives were
Perhaps two inches in length
With the smallest
Just a bit over one inch.
Many more were left
Behind to their own devices.
Why where they there?
Why burrowing away from the water,
Rather than toward it?
Is this a part
Of the reproductive cycle of the olive?
Why were they all in an area
Not more than one hundred feet in breadth?
The collected shells
Were placed in a pot of boiling water
And after five minutes
Were removed to a strainer for cooling.
A crochet hook serves best
To hook the tough fibrous body
And extract it from the shell.
There is no leathery foot or operculum
On removal, the animal
Has almost the exact dimensions
And configuration of the shell.
While others might see the olive,
Carnivorous gastropods as food,
These were used to fertilize
Tomato plants in our yard.
The olive shells
Collected in this manner
Are lustrous with
A fine serrated edge.
They require no special treatment
To be preserved.
Nowhere else on the beaches
Of Sarasota, have I found
Olives except water-worn empty shells
Since this chance discovery of lettered olives
In August, 1999.
****
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