Hello Marien
I will be seeing Peter at the Sanibel Shell Show, the first weekend in March.
I will see if he can enlighten us on the issue.
Leslie


Dear Conchologists, I have two questions especially for our German friends.

1)
Peter Dance (A history of Shell Collecting [1986: 210]) writes about the H.
Dohrn collection in Stettin "Stettin Mus. but totally destroyed in 1939-1945
war. Included collections L. Pfeiffer, Troschel and Römer".
Now this is quite unfortunate indeed, but I have (seen) from the H. Dohrn
personal LIBRARY his copies of "Malakozoologische Blätter" (with his stamp),
and Drouet's "Essai Mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles de la Guyane
Française", the latter stamped ""Städtisches naturw. Museum Stettin".
Apparently, some of the Museum's volatile holdings survived WW-II. The question
is: did his molluscs collection survive too, at least in part? Is there anyone
who really knows what happened?

2)
The well known German (later Chilean) conchologist R. A. Philippi contributed
much to the "Verein für Naturkunde zu Cassel" of which he was an important
member (together with Louis Pfeiffer, and other conchologists). He reported
annually on the growth of the zoological collection of the Verein, and even
described some new species of molluscs  in its "Jahresberichten". From the
contents it is obvious that the Verein's collection contained many type
specimens, and/or other material that could throw light upon taxa described by
Philippi, Pfeiffer, Jonas, Dunker, Speyer and other German authors (most of
them known to figure their new species sparingly).
My question is: what happened to this collection? Is it still in Kassel, has it
been obtained by another German Institution, or...?

Marien Faber
www.mollus.nl