Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 86. (Budapest 1994)

Dely, O. Gy.: In commemoration of the centenary of Géza Gyula Fejérváry's birth

bionomical aspects of zoogeography. In FEJÉRVÁRY

's opinion, bionomy is that part of biology which studies the reasons for changes taking place in the organization of animals. It is selfevident that FEJÉRVÁRY's interest, influenced by WEGENER'S theory, was more and more shifted to the questions of prehistoric life. In the same year between the 16th and 19th September, in the companion of NOPCSA and BOLKAY FEJÉRVÁRY took part at the Congress of the Pal

äontologisehe Gesellschaft held in Eichstädt. He presented at this congress his lecture "Über Prinzipien und Erscheinungen der Reversibilität in der Evolution und das Dollosche Gesetz". In his lecture FEJÉRVÁRY criticized DOLLO'S rule on the irreversibility of evolutionary changes, which had been regarded as absolutely valid until then. Contrary to this theory, he stressed that under circumstances disappeared organs can again develop. As a real basis for his own assumption FEJÉRVÁRY referred to the experimental results of the Austrian herpetologist KÄMMERER. However, FEJÉRVÁRY also called attention to the fact that animals staying at a high level of evolution had lost their ability to develop the now ancient organs. In 1924 he published a paper on the Lacerta fauna of the island Malta. In that paper, FEJÉRVÁRY not only gave descriptions of the lizard species inhabiting these islands but called attention to the morphological diversity that had evolved under the influence of isolation. On 9th December 1924 the Société Zoologique de France elected him a member of the society and in May of the next year he was elected as an honorary member of the Malta Historical and Scientific Society. In 1925 he took over the editorship of the Hungarian Zoological Communications, as well as that of the Free University, which was a popular scientific paper. In the same year FEJÉRVÁRY lost his good friend, the Austrian herpetologist KAMMERER, who shot himself in the head. In March 1927 he gave up the editorship at the Zoological Communications and took a very active part in organizing the Xth International Zoological Congress held in the same year in Budapest, as one of the secretaries. In the same year he published a popular scientific book entitled Life, Love and Death. After giving a short summary of the history of biology he outlined the significance of this field of human culture. From his meditations FEJÉRVÁRY's natural historical materialism clearly appears. Life may be a permanent struggle, but its sense is only a rational resignation of mankind to the biological truth. All the efforts made by a man bearing the cultural values of mankind can be deduced from the feelings of care and love. In that year he published a number of popular scientific papers, some of which were of scientific value, too, as for example that one in which FEJÉRVÁRY writes about the Comodo Varanus. In spite of the fact that he could not examine a living or dead specimen of this lizard, it was quite clear for him only on the basis of the studied photos that the Comodo Varanus having special skin-bones must belong to a distinct genus of the varanids and suggested the name Placovaranus for this species. In the spring of the year 1928 FEJÉRVÁRY was invited by the Maltese government to take an expedition on the island of Malta and on the surrounding smaller islands and rocks to study the herpetofauna of that zoogeographically so interesting region. FEJÉRVÁRY 'S expedition was supported by the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and the Hungarian Geological Institution as well as by the Maltese Government. He worked on Malta in the companion of his wife and his friend GYULA KIESELBACH. The last mentioned was a zoologist and chemist, who had stayed on Malta in the First World War as a prisoner of war of the Italian Army. FEJÉRVÁRY reported on that expedition on Malta as well as on the achieved results on 8th November 1929 at a session of the Zoological Section of the Royal Hungarian Society of Natural History. Besides the lecture held in Hungarian he also published a paper in English with the title "Events from the life and geohistory of the Maltese island-group". The controversy between Darwinism and Lamarckism or in other words between the reality of evolution as a result of inner changes not being influenced by circumstances of life or as a result of acquired characters which arose as an adaptation to the environment. Whereas a