Mijn Pisidium verhaal

The author, born in 1914, describes his life since about 1934 when he started to study landmolluscs and joined the new Dutch Malacological Society. In 1941 his main interest changed to the worldwide freshwater genus Pisidium. Over the years the collections of many museums and shellcollectors were identified, he travelled to many countries to collect shells and to visit museums. About one hundred scientific articles on Sphaeriidae were published in several malacological journals, in which he described about 30 new zoological taxa. In addition almost 200 articles on various malacological subjects were published in the Correspondentieblad. His correspondence since 1933 with 700 scientists and collectors all over die world is kept and bound in fourty volumes; his malacological research and observations are described and drawn in his ‘Journaal’ of 33 volumes. The author is honorary member of the Dutch Malacological Society, honorary scientist of the Zoological Museum Amsterdam and Doctor honoris causa (1984) of the University of Amsterdam. His large Pisidium collection and important malacological library were donated to the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam in 1994. His reprint collection went to the library of the Netherlands Malacological Society. In his professional carreer he was during 40 years a diplomat in service of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for the longest period at die Dutch Embassy in Paris. He received the decoration ‘Knight in the Order of Oranje-Nassau’.