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

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

Its foundation reaches back to the 'twenties of the past century, but became important only in the 'fifties of the same, when, by the presentation of the Brunswick and the purchase of the A. Mikesz collections, its stock was raised to 2000 species and 18000 specimens. In the course of the following decades, the Collection evolved, augmented by various purchases and later by several collectings, which fell victim to the conflagration in November 1956. Among the collections that came into our possession by purchases, the most valuable and also the biggest was the collection of many thousand species of the well-known malacologist, K. B r a n c s i k, and the one of G y. H az a y. Two further significant collections were acquired as gifts. One of them was that of E. K o r n i s, preserved with extreme care, great exactitude and knowledge ; the other was that of Archduke Joseph Habsburg, a collection filling two rooms in the castle of the family in Alcsut. This collection was presented to the Museum by Joseph Habsburg jr., after the death of the Archduke. Of the materials of the destroyed Collection, the following ones ought to be mentioned as especially valuable : 1. That part of the collectings in the Balkans and the Near East of I. Frivaldszky which found its way into the Museum. The value of this collection is inherent in the fact that of the collectings of Frivaldszky and his associates several new species came to light, recognized and named also as such by Frivaldszky himself but their description was made by Rossmässler; these descriptions, in accordance with the use of the times, were published under the authorship of Frivaldszky in the Iconographia of the former author. Today, these species have, of course, the authorship of Rossmässler. The original specimens of these species were, accordingly, deposited in our Museum which are now, however, only cotypes. 2. There were two valuable collectings from German New Guinea : one brought together by S. F e n i c h e 1, the other by L. B í r ó. The former was worked out by K. B r a n c s i k, the latter by L. Soós. 3. There was the material, worked out by Hilbert, from the Far East expedition of B. S z éc h é n y i. 4. The recent Hungarian stock collection, — based on the Carpathian shells of J. S. Petényi from the 'thirties of the past century, — consisted in its majority of the above mentioned G y. H a z a y collection and, preponderantly, of the material collected by L. Soós during several decades, — aside of the items enriching it by the collectings and presentations of external research associates and the directors of the Museum. 5. The very valuable shell collection from the Hungarian Pleistocene, collected by M. R o t a r i d e s. This contained many thousands of specimens and was under working out in the last autumn. Together with the Collection, its departmental library also perished, down to the last item, with the exception of 3 reprints and a coincidentally lent-out book. Its total was 2.550 books and periodicals, and about 1850 reprints. It was not very voluminous, but it contained rare and valuable works, such as the Conchyliencabinet of M a r t i n i — C h e m n i t z, the Iconographia of Rossmässler-Kobelt, and the complete series of the Manual of Tryon-Pilsbury and numerous old and recent periodicals. The material of the unfortunate Ichthyological Collection was, the same as the following one, completely destroyed by the fire. Approximately 15 000 home and foreign fishes in alcohol, then the skeleton, teeth and otolith collections all perished. Of the alcohol material, some 5 600 fishes belonged to the home fauna, collected in the Carpathians' Basin by J. K á r o 1 i, I. and J. F r i-