Sfax, 1935. Single printed leaf (21.5 x 27.1 cm), folded. Handwritten, signed and dated.

Handwritten letter on the stationery of the Jardin Zoologique de Sfax, by the French born conchologist, palaeontologist, archaeologist and director of Jardin Zoologique, Paul Eugène Bédé (1883-1963), to the French marine biologist, ichthyologist, parasitologist, and director of the Service des Pêches Coloniales, Robert Philippe F. Dollfus (1887-1976). Dollfus was a son of the malacologist Gustave Frédérique Dollfus (co-author of the famous Les Mollusques Marins du Rousillon), and was interested in Mollusca himself. Paul Henri Fischer wrote his obituary in the Journal de Conchyliologie 114(3-4), p. 131. In this letter, Bédé asks Dollfus to send some papers on the Miocene shells of the Touraine region, showing that an early interest in conchology had not waned. In a postscript he mentions the recent death of Louis Marie Adolphe Olivier Édouard Joubin (born 1861). Bédé himself remained in Sfax until his death in 1963. Bédé is not in 2400 Years of Malacology. See M. Sebaï, 2017, Collections électroniques de l'INHA. Paul Bédé, un naturaliste amateur d’archéologie à Sfax dans les années 1930. Premières observations sur les activités des correspondants français de Louis Poinssot.