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

discovering the signs of effects exerted by evolution on other organisms. For example visiting a number of museums abroad, he noticed the differences appearing in the shape of the feet of statues made by archaic sculptors and those made by contemporary ones. These differences cannot be explained only by the aesthetic imagination of the ancient classic sculptors. The 2nd toe on the feet of the archaic statues is always longer than the 1st toe, whereas on the foot of recent human races the 1st toe is the longest of all. In FEJÉRVÁRY 'S opinion the lengthening of the 1st toe was an actual process in the differentiation of man. This seems to be proved by the fact that on the foot of Neolithic man, as well as on that of mummies from tombs of ancient Egypt and South America the 1st toe is much shorter than the 2nd one. As a follower of LAMARCK'S idea, FEJÉRVÁRY explained the changes by the different consequences of wearing shoes by man that originally walked barefoot. On 2nd June 1932 FEJÉRVÁRY died of the complications of a gall-bladder operation. After his death five of his papers were published. All were edited on the basis of his manuscripts and notes by his wife. One of these papers is the necrology of BOLKAY, written in German. Another one was written by FEJÉRVÁRY on the request of the then general director of the Hungarian National Museum about the establishing of the future organisation of the Natural History Museum. As professor of zoology he planned a Textbook of Zoology, too. From the planned three volumes only the first one was published under the title "Einführung in die Zoologie". FEJÉRVÁRY 'S great posthumous monograph on the lizard group Megalanidae and Varanidae was published in 1935. In this work of nearly 150 pages FEJÉRVÁRY deals with the Varanus remains from nearly the whole world. He corrected some of his statements published in 1918. This monograph contains the description of a new species (Varanus bolkayi), too. FEJÉRVÁRY's last posthumous paper was published in 1936. Besides the results of his investigations carried out on Lacerta princeps and other related forms FEJÉRVÁRY 's own point of view on the muralis problem was also discussed in that paper. In spite of his relatively short career, FEJÉRVÁRY wrote nearly 70 original scientific papers and about 50 educational popular scientific papers of very high level. FEJÉRVÁRY's scientific papers mostly deal with the problem of evolution within the scope of herpetology. In a smaller number of his papers he discusses general biological, zoogeographical, palaeontological, osteological, morphological and faunistic subjects. He wrote papers about nomenclaturic problems of systematic zoology, too. FEJÉRVÁRY 'S scientific activity had its origin in faunistic research but over the years it became wider and wider. In nearly all of the subjects studied by him, he investigated not only the recent species, but the fossil ones too. He always made efforts to clarify the connections existing between recent and extinct species that were living or had lived in the territory studied. Bibliography on the life and activity of GÉZA GYULA FEJÉRVÁRY ADLER, K. (1989): Herpetologists of the Past. - In: ADLER, K. (ed.): Contributions to the History of Herpetology. S.S.A.R. Canterbury, pp. 85-86. BOROS, I. & DELY, O. GY. (1968): Einige Vertreter der ungarischen Zoologie an der Wende des 19.-20. Jahrhunderts und die wissenschaflshistorische Bedeutung ihrer Tätigkeit II. Géza Gyula Fejérváry (1894-1932). - Vertebr. hung. 10 (1-2): 45-142. DELY, O. GY. (1968): Die wissenschaftliche und literarische Tätigkeit von Géza Gyula Fejérváry auf dem Gebiet der Zoologie. - Vertebr. hung. 10 (1-2): 13-43. JAHN, I., LÖTOER, R. & SENGLAUB, K. (1985): Geschichte der Biologie. Theorien, Methoden, Institutionen, Kurzbiographien. Zweite, durchgesehene Auflage. - VEB G. Fischer Verlag, Jena, 864 pp. (spec. pp. 399-401, 543. KÁDÁR, Z. (1983): Fejérváry Géza. - Természet Világa, (Budapest) 114 (1): 43-44. PONGRÁCZ, S. (1932a): Dr. báró Fejérváry Géza 1894-1932. (G. J. Freiherr von Fejérváry 1894-1932.) - Állati. Közlem. 29 (3-4): 199-204. PONGRÁCZ, S. (1932b): Báró Fejérváry Géza. - A Természet (Budapest) 28 (13-14): 155-156.