In Their Own Right

This issue is produced in time to promote this year's Annual Meeting, a major two day conference on the Biogeography and Distribution of European Land and Freshwater Molluscs, in Cardiff at the end of February. Although smaller than usual, it contains accounts of the lively interest shown in the Young Malacologists' Forum and the enjoyable soirée with the Linnean Society on Predatory Molluscs, together with work supported by The Society's Centenary award, a round-up of recent publications and news items about the interactions of molluscs and men and their role as models of biological systems.

I carefully added those last three words, after reading, in an undergraduate dissertation on gastropod learning, that molluscs were good models of human systems. (About the same time I came across this quote from Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country: "It might be more productive...if you employed someone...with an IQ above that of a small mollusc".) I object to the student's view that the human angle is the only justification for animal research. A mollusc - indeed any animal - repays study in its own right.

I am grateful to everyone who has contributed items for the Bulletin. Please send items for the next half-yearly Bulletin (Number 33, August 1999) to reach me by mid-July. Keep articles simple and succinct, and, where appropriate, include a reference and an illustration.

Dr S E R Bailey

School of Biological Sciences,
3.614 Stopford Building,
The University of Manchester,
Oxford Rd,
Manchester M13 9PT, U.K.

Tel: 0161 275 3861
Fax: 0161 275 3938

Email: BBAI...@FS1.SCG.MAN.AC.UK

TAXONOMIC / NOMENCLATURAL DISCLAIMER

This publication is not deemed to be valid for taxonomic/nomenclatural purposes [see Article 8b in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature 3rd Edition (1985) edited by W. D. Ride et al.].