Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)

Phylum Arthropoda 113 which specimens were found to occur in Egyházasfalu, Sajtoskál, Répcelak and Uraiújfalu. Occurrence on a mass scale in the West Hungarian border region can be dated from 1952 (JERMY and SÁRINGER 1955). During the 1950s and 1970s, staff of the Ecology and Zoosystematics Department of the Loránd Eötvös University of Sciences in Budapest made collections in the Kőszeg Hills, the Őrség and the Vendvidék. A small proportion of the material collected by IMRE LOKSA and his team, mainly with pitfall traps, found its way to the Natural History Department at the Savaria Museum, while most remains in the cellars of the institute, preserved in alcohol and awaiting processing. Even after LOKSA'S death, the efforts of the professor's assistant, the information in the collecting journals and the system of itemized code numbers mean that most of the material could still be identified. Little of the pitfall-trap material from the Kőszeg Hills has spoiled. However, it is increasingly urgent for this vast quantity to be processed, as the alcoholized material steadily deteriorates and the forthcoming removal of the institute to new premises threatens to cause damage. Of the staff of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, JÓZSEF ERDŐS worked in the Őrség in 1944, 1960 and 1961, and JENŐ PAPP did so in 1967. Museum staff also made collections on the peat bog of Szőce in 1961. Only sporadic records of the beetle fauna of the Őrség (CSÍKI 1941b, 1941C and 1953; ENDRŐDI 1967 and 195969; TRÄGER 1937) had been published before the first coleopterological findings of the Natural History of Praenoricum research programme appeared. The programme started in 1976 and was joined in 1979 by a team of eight amateur coleopterists from Budapest, who focused their collections up to 1981 on the Kőszeg Hills (ROZNER 1981). Only MÁRIA CSIBY and SÁNDOR TÓTH collected insects, including beetles, in the Sopron Hills. There were no coleopterists at work in the Sopron Hills at that time and few collecting days had been spent in the Őrség. The insect collection during the second phase of the programme took place mainly in the Őrség and Vendvidék, so that sizeable quantities of beetle and other insect material was added to the insect collection at the Savaria Museum. The work of excellent amateur coleopterists, joined later by professionals, led to a sudden advance in knowledge of the beetle fauna in the area and to the discovery of several species new to the Hungarian fauna. The beetle material gathered in the Őrség and adjacent areas under the Natural History of the Őrség research programme became available for processing in 1995-6. Unfortunately, some has remained in vials, for want of specialists to examine it, and a further advance in knowledge of the beetles of the Őrség can be expected. One field of interest for SÁNDOR HORVATOVICH is the ground-beetle family (Carabidae). In his taxonomic study of the Hungarian species of Cymindis, he noted that Cymindis angularis occurs in Kőszeg (HORVATOVICH 1974a and 1974b). His paper was the third study (HORVATOVICH 1983) after those of ZOLTÁN KASZAB (1937) and ERNŐ CSÍKI (1941a) to present faunistic findings about ground beetles in the West Hungarian border region. One study of his was devoted to the ground beetles inhabiting red clover in