Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 50. (Budapest 1958)

Boros, I.: Kálmán Kittenberger and the Hungarian National Museum - Museum of Natural History

Kálmán Kittenberger and the Hungarian National Museum — Museum of Natural History By I. Boros, Budapest Among those who considerably enrichened the overseas material of the Hungarian National Museum —• Museum of Natural History without ever having belonged to the official staff, we come up against names, which are well-known also internationally. To mention but a few, I think it is enough to remind museum workers of Dr. L. Doleschall (the Sunda Isles), T. D u k a (East India), S. Fenichel (New Guinea), B. Széchenyi (the Far East), J. Zichy (Turkestan, Inner Asia), dr. Gy. A 1 m á s y (Inner Asia, Africa), Ö. Kovács (Africa), J. Xantus (the Far East, the Sunda Isles), L. Biró (New Guinea). Among them, J. X a n t u s (1825—1894), after having returned from his emigration abroad, became a member of the staff of the Zoological Department of the National Museum as a nominal director ; and L. Biró (1856—1931), from whose collectings in New Guinea several new data and taxa are published even today in the publications of the great European Museums, are the best known. Besides them and in ever widening circles, Kálmán Kittenberger arises to fame, who, though primarily famous all over the world as a sure-handed hunter of African big game, left enduring traces, similarly to the above ones, by his collecting activities in the Annals of science and in the history of our museum. We were therefore understandably shocked by the sad news on 4 January 1958, that one of our best friends and highly esteemed colleague : Kálmán Kittenberger died suddenly after a short illness. He was born in Léva, 10 October 1881. Having finished the local teachers' training school, and in pursuance of his inclinations to study animals, he continued studies in the teacher's institute of the high-school of Budapest for the sake of widening his knowledge. At the same time, he diligently visited the zoological preparatories of the National Museum to acquaint himself with the methods for collecting and preparing animals. Never even finishing his high-school studies, he went to teach in the village Tatrang, in Transylvania. Nor could he remain there. When he received a letter from the National Museum calling on him that there is a possibility to travel to Africa accompanying P. Bornemissza, then hunting and collecting in British East Africa, even the wonderful hunting possibilities of the Transylvanian mountains were unable to hold him back, and he set forth unhesitatingly; receiving his teacher's salary in advance for one whole year, as a youngster of 21 years in December 1902 and with but the most indispensable meager equipment, he started for East Africa, — and became a life-long lover of it. With the steadfastness of devoted men, of people ready to even sacrifice their lives in the service of a set purpose, many times in difficult circumstances and interrupting his journeys occasionally, he visited six times the equatorial territories of East Africa, zoogeographically