I got a good laugh from Paul Egerton's "worst packing materials." The Canadian Post Office's policy of delivering anything with a stamp reminds me of a song from my youth, which went in part, more or less: I'm going to wrap myself in paper, I'm going to seal myself with glue, Stick some bubble gum in my head, I'm going to mail myself to you. In the United Kingdom, the Royal Mail delivers the post, but in America, the U.S. Postal Service delivers the mail. As a graduate student, a friend of mine ("Steve") was asked to wrap a type specimen for return to a museum. Steve wrapped it in layer after layer of shock-absorbing material, to the point where it might have withstood a bomb blast. When his professor (Don Hattin) asked him if it was wrapped well enough, Steve said nothing, just smiled and threw it into the wall. The specimen was unharmed, not so the professor's nerves. The esteemed malacologist Myra Keen did something very similar to her students, as related in a previous installment of Conch-L, but it's a long story and you can probably find it in the Archives by searching for "+Conch-L +Keen" on Alta Vista. Okay, guys, back to work. Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama