Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)
146 Phylum Arthropoda range. The connection with Austria is not proven, although it is likely that the stock on the Hungarian side of the border forms part of a larger Austrian metapopulation. The present state of the habitats suggests that the poplar admiral may have lived in the uplands in greater numbers than it does today and become rarer because of changes in the environmental conditions. It is interesting, but unfortunate to find that alongside the mainly professional lepidopterists in Western Hungary, there have only been two amateur lepidopterists collecting in the home vicinities, so that they have regular chances to study the moth and butterfly fauna of the area. One of the exceptions was ISTVÁN VÖRÖS (1894-1963), a schoolmaster from Egyházasrádóc, who spent a lifetime studying and collecting in his immediate neighbourhood: Egyházasrádóc, Körmend Woods, Körmend, Nemsem Wood and Szentpéterfa (Figure 12.10). He recalled what happened to his collections in a letter: 'My first great fine collection was utterly destroyed in the First World War, because I joined up in 1914, battlefield, taken prisoner... and by the time I came back home only fragments remained... The passion for collecting flared up in me again in 1935, but then I only collected moths... My later collection was destroyed in the Second World War.' His third collecting period lasted from 1946 to 1962. He recorded his results in a journal, without which the collection would have been useless, for there is an abbreviated locality attached to only a small proportion of the specimens. Most of the material was identified by himself, and a small proportion by PÁL TALLÓS. By the time ISTVÁN VÖRÖS died, the collection contained 23 73 macrolepidopterous specimens, which he bequeathed to the Natural History Department of the Savaria Museum in Szombathely. 63 The collection was processed by ÁKOS UHERKOVICH. It contains 543 macrolepidopterous species from the vicinity of Egyházasrádóc. Most of these are distributed nationwide, but there are several species that occur only sporadically or are extremely rare in Hungary (UHERKOVICH 1979). The full species list of the collection was also published by UHERKOVICH (1980a). The other amateur collector to mention is FERENC NAGY, whose Lepidoptera collection contains larger numbers of specimens mainly from the vicinity of Szombathely and from the Kőszeg Hills. He managed to demonstrate the occurrence of a species new to the Hungarian fauna (Elophos serotinaria), with a specimen caught in a spruce stand on the slopes of írottkő in the Kőszeg Hills, on July 21, 1987 (NAGY 2001). Later investigations found another two examples (caught in Esztergom on July 10, 1937 and July 9, 1940, leg. LAJOS BLATTNY) in the collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. BOGLÁRKA CZIGÁNY and LEVENTE ÁBRAHÁM (2001) studied the diversity of the butterflies in three typical Göcsej habitats. Two studies in the 1970s dealt with the Lepidoptera of the wider Fertő district. LÁSZLÓ ISSEKUTZ reported on the 63 HORVÁTH, E. 1964. Vörös István és múzeumi hagyatéka (IV and his bequest to the museum). Savaria a Vas megyei Múzeumok Értesítője 2:101-7.
