SEA SHELLS IN ACTION

Curious tidbits about 25 seashells arranged at random, illustrated with misty watercolors, and described with a deluge of question marks (""Did you know. . . ?"") and exclamation points. Included are the ""cannibal"" whelk and conch shells, the textile cone that ""can kill a man!,"" the coon oyster that climbs trees (but the illustration features a real raccoon!?), shells that go snorkeling, make nests, or spin golden threads, and shells that provide purple dyes, pearls or medicines. But considering the plethora of existing seashell books, from the poetic to the rigorously scientific, we can leave Ms. Newell's busy creatures to their varied enterprises.