Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 100. (Budapest 2008)

Korsós, Z.: History of the Herpetological Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum

The zoological collection - which at that time did not officially exist as an independent organisation - was housed between 1813-1838 in depositories on the site on Múzeum Boulevard (which was bought for museum purposes from Count ANTAL BATTHYÁNY in 1813). Unfortunately, the great flood of the Danube river at Pest in 1838 destroyed almost the whole collection (inch most of PETÉNYi's and FRIVALDSZKY'S material), even though there were attempts to rescue it into the building of the Ludovika Military Academy. It became obvious for everyone that the collection, being more and more valuable, was worthy of an independent storing place. As ÁGOSTON KUBINYI wrote in 1861: "Because the greater part of the museum's collections were stored in the building of the Ludoviceum since the dangerous flood of

1838 until the spring of

1847, a small part of it temporarily and in a hurry exhibited, the other part locked away in crates, during this time the scientists and the curious public could not take advantage of it." Built after the plans of MIHÁLY POLLACK, the new building of the National Museum was ready in 1846, and the natural history collections got its place on the second floor in eight rooms (Figs 8-9). As was the custom in that age, the exhibition and the scientific collection were not separated. In this year altogether 3,500 vertebrate and more than 32,000 invertebrate specimens were stored in the museum (ANONYMOUS 1896). Between 1837 and 1847, besides many smaller acquisitions, the most significant herpetological increase was the donation of GYÖRGY JÁNOS RAINER, which consisted of 46 amphibian and reptile specimens collected around the Tátra Mts, northern Hungary (now in Slovakia) (MÉHELY 1902). The year 1851 was also exceptional, when "... the Hungarian group of amateur naturalists (i.e. the Royal Hungarian Natural History Society) ceased to handle its collections, and passed all its animal, plant and mineral collections to the museum" (KUBINYI 1861). The reason for this great donation was not really scientific consideration, but rather because of the poor financial state of the Natural History Society after the freedom-fights and the lack of space (GOMBOCZ 1941). In this collection, there were 19 reptiles and 3 amphibians (MÉHELY 1902). In the inventory list, the material was only enlisted in the year 1856 (Fig. 10). From the foreign collections, those which deserve to be mentioned are: the 206-specimen collection of LAJOS DOLESCHALL from the island of Java ( 1856), the Egyptian reptiles of JÁNOS KOVÁCS (50 pes, plus 57 crocodile eggs) and the collection of JÁNOS XÁNTUS, which was collected in South California (=Baja California) and completed by a few specimens sent by the Smithsonian Institution of Washington (FRIVALDSZKY J. 1865). It contained 61 specimens altogether, and arrived in 1861 (Fig. 11). In exchange for it, our museum sent 21 Hungarian specimens to the Smithsonian Institution in 1862 (among which were four Snake-eyed Skinks and two Olms). From 1850 on, the entries in the inventory lists were no longer given with numbers that started anew each year, but were numbered continuously. Thus, the herpetological items can be easily identified by their numbers. In the aforementioned handcopied inventory list, the last, 1193

r entry (the collection from around the Sava River, now in Croatia, by JÁNOS KARL), is just an entry at the end of the page in the original inventory list from 1850. Why did the transcription and the clearance end in 1873 is not clearly understandable, because at that time the independent collection had already existed for 3 years (see below), and - for instance - inventory take-over also did not happen then but in 1895-1896 (around