Once I received a wonderfully packaged present in the mail from Switzerland. I took the coarse brown paper off the cardboard box, then opened the box to find bubblewrap. Inside the bubblewrap was a box sealed in clear plastic, and inside the plastic was an illustrated paper wrapper. It now became evident that chocolates were inside, but I did not reach them immediately, for I still had to open the box and remove more paper and more plastic to find... twelve exquisite Swiss truffles, each sitting perfectly untouched in their own foil wrappers inside more paper and more plastic. Of course, after all that work, anything would have tasted good, but these truffles... ah... they were exquisite. My friend sent truffles to her brother too, but they melted in the sun. There are all sorts of lessons to learn from this for packaging shells. Type specimens are mailed with almost the same degree of care. Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama