Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)
XVI into the fauna of the West Hungarian border region, providing a firm foundation for faunistic researchers in the decades and centuries to come. This work is a worthy companion to earlier The foreword is a paradoxical form. If the work is good, a good foreword is superfluous, for no one will read it anyway. If the work is no good, no foreword is going to save it. However, knowing the author and his work, I can accept the task with equanimity. It is a delight to turn the pages of this book. The historical section examines almost four centuries, starting with the appearance of the first work of zoology by a Hungarian author, back in 1637. Perhaps it can be mentioned here, in view of the Sárvár years of GYÖRGY VÁRADI LENCSÉS (1530-1593), that the roots could have been traced back to the 1550s, although the uncertain early data belong more to the field of ethnozoology. The most recent literary items included date from 2003. The pages of this book contain a taxonomic review that makes it a seminal work for taxonomists and for population geneticists and environmentalists as well. The material can also be useful to teachers and students preparing materials on the history of biology. They will gain studies in scientific history by JÁNOS HANÁK, ZOLTÁN SZILÁDY, ENDRE GOMBOCZ, RAJMUND RAPAICS, ZOLTÁN KÁDÁR, SZANISZLÓ PRISZTER, ISTVÁN GAZDA, PÁL JUHÁSZNAGY or ATTILA T. SZABÓ. an impression from this work of how scientific activity in Western Hungary came, at the turns of consecutive centuries (around 1800 and around 1900), to be in a position to influence the general development of natural and environmental studies as well. Two hundred years ago, the scholarly Count IMRE FESTETICS of Kőszeg anticipated and prepared for the genetic recognitions of GREGOR MENDEL in 1865, when as a livestock breeder (and a herald of universal genetics), he formulated the 'Genetic Laws of Nature'. 1 A century later, ISTVÁN CHERNÉL, OTTÓ HERMAN and their friends and colleagues founded the Hungarian Ornithological Centre in 1893, as real zoologists, basing themselves on scientific experience of ornithology, and as an immediate forerunner of that, organized the 2nd International Ornithological Congress in Budapest in 1891. The congress raised the problems of nature and environmental protection to an international level for the first time in the modern world. Thanks to a Hungarian initiative, Keszthely, March 17, 2003 GYULA SÁRINGER Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION 1 FESTETICS, 1.1819. Schafzucht. Inzucht: Die genetische Gesätze der Natur. 1819. Prague et Brunn [Brno] .
