Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 8. (Budapest 1957)

Boros, I.: The tragedy of the Hungarian Natural History Museum

The Zoological Department The Collection of Lower Invertebrate Animals housed the phyla of Protozoa, Ceolentarata, Porifera, Tunicata, Echinodermata and Bryozoa, and, aside of the Protozoons, it consisted of about 50 000 specimens in 5 000 glasses. The Protozoa collection comprised about 2 500 vials of home and about 500 vials of foreign, mainly Helgoland and Adriatic fixed plankton samples, and some 3 000 microscopic preparations. In this latter, there were 15 types and 5 new species, undescribed as yet, which, together with the burnt notes and drawings, are now, for the time being, lost for science. The backbone of the other collection groups were the collectings of the 2 Najade expeditions on the Adriatic, further the one of I. Apathy from Naples, of G. Kol osváry from Rovinj, Split and Kotor, and of M. Pell from Rovinj. Here were deposited the Coelenterates, sponges and echinoderms collected by Xanthus in the Indian Ocean, the same as the Coelenterate material from the Atlantic Ocean presented by professor Clark to the Museum. The sponge material from the Adriatic (about 400 glasses), identified by Babic Krunoslav, the best marine sponge specialist, was also a great treasure, with the types of 3 new species and the Scyphomeduse Drymonema dalmatina Haeckel of which no more than 5—6 specimens were ever found, inclusive also its discoverer. As for the other parts of the Collection, the 100 beatuiful colonies of the endemic Euspongilla Carteri ssp. balatoniensis from the Lake Balaton was a value even in world respect. Simultaneously with the Collection, its valuable departmental library of 200 volumes and periodicals and some 1300 reprints were also destroyed, together with the expensive microscopes, hydrobiological equipment and laboratory instruments. The small yet very valuable Hydrachnella Collection of many thousand minute animals was annihilated in the room of the Orthopteroidea — Neuropteroidea Collection, immedietely adjacent to the Herpetological Collection. It contained partly conserved partly microscopis slides of home and foreign materials mainly from the collectings of Z. Szilády, E. D u d i c h, L. S z a 1 a y, T. J e r m y, A. Gebhardt, J. Stiller, J. Zichy, E. Csiki, G y. Almásy and L. B i r ó. The conserved material was placed in 90—95 Ultreform glasses and 20—25 jars ; an Ultreform glass contained 30—40 vials, a jar 15—18 ones. The number of slides was 1 350. With the latter, some 70—80 types of L. S z a 1 a y were annihilated. Concerning the library of the collection, only some 20 books were burnt, but the loss of reprints is the more lamentable, as about 1 300 of them were reduced to ashes. A grave loss, too, is the destruction of the 3 microscopes and the various instruments of the Collection. Into the Orthopteriode and Neuropteroide Collection, housing also the Hydracarine Collection and adjacent to the Herpetological Collection, fell the first grenade which caused the fatal fire. Owing to the strength of the explosion, the alcohol of the glass preparations fallen and broken to pieces in the Herpetological Collection was the first to burst into flames, becoming an inundating danger to demolish everything. This small room, wherein we have transferred shortly before the tragic events the Ephemeroptera — Plecoptera — Odonata — Orthoptera — Dermaptera — Neuroptera — Trichoptera — Isoptera (Isodontia, Termitidae) collecti32 Természettudományi Múzeum Évkönyve