The question that comes first
On this page9
Why this property starts here
Every other property in this library is about selling something. This one is about keeping something, and for several of these finds the law has a clear view that most people have never encountered.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is the sharpest case
It is unlawful to "possess" any migratory bird or "any part, nest, or egg" of one. Possession is listed alongside hunting and killing, and nothing in the statute turns on how the part came to be in your hand.
Which catches a thing nobody thinks about
A feather on a beach. Picking it up and putting it in a jar is possession of a part of a migratory bird. It is the clearest prohibition in this property and the least known.
Arrowheads have a narrow exception
ARPA subsection (g) says nothing in subsection (d) applies to "the removal of arrowheads located on the surface of the ground". Read every word: one subsection, arrowheads, on the surface.
It is not a permission to dig
Subsection (a) still prohibits excavating or removing an archaeological resource on public or Indian lands. The arrowhead exception is about a penalty provision and about surface finds, not about the general prohibition.
And pottery shards have no equivalent
The exception names arrowheads. A pottery shard on the surface of public land is an archaeological resource with no carve-out, which surprises people who assume surface finds are generally fine.
Shells, sand and driftwood are state and local
Which means the answer varies by beach, by park and by whether the shell was occupied. There is no single federal answer and anybody giving you one is guessing.
So the useful thing a catalog can do
Name the questions, quote the statutes exactly, and then be good at the part that is actually ours: storing a find properly once the answer is yes.