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

Introduction 5 of Forestry and the Timber Industry (later Sopron University, today the University of Western Hungary in Sopron), such as SÁNDOR FARAGÓ, ZOLTÁN IGMÁNDY, FERENC LAKATOS, FERENC VARGA and others, mainly on plant and forestry-protection topics but containing some zoological information. For similar reasons, the bibliography omits all but a few of the plantprotection publications by staff of the Vas County Plant Health and Soil Protection Station. Readers may notice that volumes of the Fauna Hungáriáé series have seldom been mentioned, although they contain significant quantities of data on the book's subject matter. The objection is pertinent and calls for some explanation. The series was initiated by the publishing branch of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Akadémiai Kiadó) in 1955,

12 and over a hundred volumes have appeared, which makes it a formidable and major undertaking by international standards as well. The volumes are not expressly monographs so much as identification handbooks, with which (in principle) it is possible to identify the species of animal living or suspected of living in this country. With many taxa, however, the elaboration has yet to be accomplished, for want of a specialist to do it. This fact in itself would not preclude incorporating the existing volumes into the present study. The reason for not doing so is a simple one. The volumes must in themselves be seen ultimately as monographs, which makes them inescapable and indispensable when working on the species found in this country from any animal taxon. Anyone undertaking expressly faunistic elaboration has to consult the relevant volumes. On the other hand, to scrutinize several tens of thousands of pages and for many species to check and correct the altered nomenclature would have constituted an extra task that only a team of researchers could accomplish thoroughly. There was no chance of doing so with the limited resources and facilities available to the author, who apologizes, however, and draws readers' attention here to the volumes connected with the taxa discussed in this book. The author owes a debt of gratitude to many colleagues and friends for their help in preparing this book. This applies first of all to the professional readers of the manuscript: Academician GYULA SÁRINGER (Veszprém University, Keszthely), Professor ATTILA T. SZABÓ (Veszprém University, Veszprém) and LÁSZLÓ KÁRPÁTI, director of the Fertő-Hanság National Park, Sarród. I am most grateful to them for valuable data, advice and corrections, which improved and enriched the text. I am grateful also to colleagues who read individual chapters and weeded out several inaccuracies and errors through conscientious correction of the manuscript: GÁBOR CSORBA, BALÁZS FARKAS, LÁSZLÓ FORRÓ, ZOLTÁN KORSÓS, OTTÓ MERKL, FERENC MÉSZÁROS, JENŐ PAPP, LÁSZLÓ PAPP, ISTVÁN PINTÉR, LÁSZLÓ RONKAY, GYŐZŐ SZÉL, GYÖRGY SZIRÁKI, ANTAL VIDA (Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest), LEVENTE ÁBRAHÁM (Somogy County Museums' Directorate, Kaposvár), ELŐD KONDOROSY (Veszprém University, Keszthely), TIBOR KOVÁCS and ANDRÁS VARGA (Mátra Museum, Gyöngyös), CSABA SZINETÁR (Dániel Berzsenyi KASZAB, Z. 1956. Magyarország állatvilága (Fauna of Hungary). Múzeumi Híradó 1:3-5.