Vig Károly: Zoological Research in Western Hungary. A history (Szombathely, 2003)

22 Historical survey volume appeared in Vienna in 1735, followed by four more volumes up to 1742. (Only half the fifth volume, a description of Moson County appeared, on only 71 pages.)

63 Descriptions of the Hungarian counties of Pozsony, Túróc, Zólyom, Liptó, Pest-Pilis-Solt, Nógrád, Hont, Bars, Nyitra and Moson appeared in BÉL'S lifetime (in 1735-42). These constituted about a third of the expanding manuscript material, which had been expected to occupy only six volumes. The author's illness, financial difficulties and eventual death left the remainder of the material in manuscript. The unpublished parts were purchased from BÉL'S heirs by JÓZSEF BATTHYÁNY, archbishop of Kalocsa. Some of the volumes were damaged on their way to him when they fell into the Danube, and these he had copied by JAKAB MILLER, later a famous bibliographer, and the scholarly Canon JÓZSEF CALOVINO of Pozsony. The MILLER-CALOVINO copies of the description of Vas County have been lost, but the map drawn in about 1740-45 by SÁNDOR MIKOVINY to accompany them survives as the first good map of the county, from the geographical and toponymie points of view.

64 MÁTYÁS BÉL'S work was the first thorough description of Vas County made in the period since the Ottoman occupation of central Hungary. It details its geographical situation and natural conditions, including hunting, game and fishing. There are valuable distribution data on 'wild goat' (i.e. ibex, Copra ibex), capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), great bustard (Otis tarda) and certain fish species.

65 It even contains an exhaustive description of the Roman town of Savaria.

66 MÁTYÁS BÉL also provided in 1723 the first item of applied ornithological data for Hungary: an account of starling (Stumus vulgaris) damage at Sopron vineyards in 1718. Based on observations in situ, he gave a description of the damage done by starlings and the protective measures taken against them, which remained typical of the district for centuries.

67 The physician and natural philosopher JÁNOS GYÖRGY KRAMER (С. 1684c. 1744) was also born in Sopron. He combined botanical studies with some important zoological observations. He had papers published on the cricket fauna of Hungary and Austria,

68 on 63 The volume was reissued by JENŐ ZICHY in 1892. 64 BENDEFY (BENDA), L. 1976. Mikoviny Sámuel megyei térképei, különös tekintettel az Akadémiai Könyvtár Kézirattárának Mikoviny-térképeire I

—II. (County maps of SM, especially the Mikoviny maps in the Academy Library manuscript collectipn). Publicationes Bibliothecae Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 71:1-360 + appendices. 65 BENDEFY (BENDA), L. 1976. Descriptio Comitatus Castri ferrei per Mathiam Belium

—Bél Mátyás: Vas vármegye leírása I. Általános rész: Vas vármegye földrajzi helyzete és természeti viszonyai (Description of Vas County I. General: Geographical Situation and Natural Conditions of Vas County). Vasi Szemle 30:108-25. 66 В. THOMAS, Е., and GY. PROKOPP 1959. Bél Mátyás: Hungáriáé Novae Notifia. Membrum III. De Sabaria. Vasi Szemle 13:37-57. 67 BÉL 1723. 68 KRAMER, J. 1734. De gryllo in aures bubulci Temesvariensis ingresso, et gossypio conglobato, melleque illitio extracto'. Commercium Litterarium Norimbergae 11:82; idem 1749. De gryllorum quinque speciebus in Austria, et sexta in Servia detectis. Ibid. 29:226.