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

150 Phylum Arthropode! Figure 12.11. ISTVÁN FÁSZL (1838-1900), a teacher, ornithologist and member of the Benedictine order, was author of the first work on the true flies of Sopron and district is by no means over. Slight changes in climatic factors may cause some species to retreat and others to advance, bringing significant changes in their relative dominance, which will provide plenty of work for lepidopterists in this field. As taxonomic knowledge increases and foreign specialists are involved in it, ever more species will become known, which means that fieldwork will remain essential, as it is with every group of animals. Order Mecoptera (scorpion flies) KÁLMÁN VAKARCS (1939) mentioned the occurrence of the snow scorpion fly (Boreus hyemalis) in the Vendvidék: 'In the winter, we were able to find in Zsida Wood, beneath the moss, so-called Boreus hiemalis [sic], whose native land is Turkestan.' Order Diptera (true flies and mosquitoes) The earliest scattered data in this field appear in a communication by JÁNOS FRIVALDSZKY (1870). ISTVÁN FÁSZL (Figure 12.11) provided an enumeration based on the first systematic analysis in the field, publishing anonymously the results of his collections of Diptera in the vicinity of Sopron and by Fertő (FÁSZL 1878). After four years' work, he established his collection, basing it on the Diptera volume of Fauna Austriaca (SCHINER 1862), so that most of his ascriptions are correct, although most of his identifications of the Tachinidae are certainly false.

68 In line with faunistic knowledge at the time, FÁSZL listed about 120 hover-flies (Syrphidae) and 80 tachinids from the Sopron district. (Accurate counts cannot be given because of problems of nomenclature.) Apart from very precise localities, the study also gave some ecological factors. Unfortunately FÁSZL'S collection, like so many school collections, was eventually destroyed. Even JÁNOS THALHAMMER was unable to find it. JÁNOS THALHAMMER (1896) probably took over the full Diptera notes of ISTVÁN FÁSZL unchanged when he compiled the Diptera chapter of Fauna Regni Hungáriáé. This enumeration is complemented by the West Hungarian border region occurrence records for Diptera collected by JÁNOS PÁVEL. Personal communication from LÁSZLÓ PAPP, Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest.