Dear ALL,

Today I have a special important request:

Giuzeppe Mamo (1793-1865) was one of our doyens who studied the local mollusca. His collection was bought by the government and was last seen at the then National Library of Malta. However, after the war the whereabouts of this collection could not be traced! At the Museum of Natural History of Mdina Malta (where I have been helping voluntarily during my years of retirement) we have found samples with handwritten labels of an undeciphered contributor which could possibly belong to Mamo. Mamo's most important exchanges were the endemic Clausiliidae. We have not been able to find anything written by Mamo so that, perhaps we would compare his handwriting with those mysterious labels. We were wondering if any of you, especially curators, have ever come across with any signed labels with Mamo's samples in your collections. All we want is a scan of any of these labels to compare with our undeciphered labels.

Here is a list of a few of his important correspondents (after A. A. Caruana 1867)

Prof. Gray (British Museum), Prof. Otto (Liverpool), Prof. Warwick (Zoological Gardens), Prof. W. V. Hennack (Plymouth), H. Cuming, (London), Lady Selina Henry, Prof. Litch, Governor Sir W. Denison (Australia). Prof. Duffosi (Paris), Prof. Cremiens (Marseilles), Prof. Callioz (Vienna), Prof. Maravigna, Piazza Ciantar, Aradas, Guttadauro and Benoit (Sicily).

Thank you heartily for your efforts,

Constantine Mifsud,

MALTA

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