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Nagyenyed in the year 1848, when one part of his collection was robbed, 

 the other, together with his notes, the result of 10 years of scientific 

 •explorations, destroyed by the fire. 



During the war of liberty and after it's bloody end he lived in 

 Hungary as a fugitive and it was there he began to write by memory, 

 the results of his ornithological and scientific explorations; later on he 

 returned to Transsylvania, wehere he continued his work, which however 

 was interrupted by his untimely death at the age of 44 in the year 1854. 



As his literaiT activity fell in the time of supression. he could not 

 publish anything. His widow preserved his manuscripts, which she handed 

 over later on to János de Csató, the renowned ornithologist of Trans- 

 sylvania. He forwarded them to the Royal Hungarian institute of Orni- 

 thology and at last in tlie year 1848, the most precious part of his 

 ornithological legacy concerning the avifauna of Transsylvania could be 

 published, with illustrations and a diary. The greatest merit of his work is, 

 that he took into consideration only such notes, which were prooved 

 authentic by museal specimens, and that he published only selfdependant 

 observations, so his work gives a true picture of the avifauna of Trans- 

 sylvania as it was before the year 1848, which then was much richer 

 in individuals as in the present, but in the relative abundance and 

 rareness of the specimens we can see almost no difference. For instance 

 Oypaëtus and Neophron were already then very rare, whereas the Gyps 

 fulvus and the Vidtnr monachus very abundant. The Syrnium uralense 

 was already then a nesting bird and the Erithacus philomela the most 

 frequent Nightingale specimen in Transsylvania and not the Erithacus 

 luscinia. 



His work is the pride and most precious relic of the hungarian 

 Ornitholog\^ Zetk was the first, who made systematical notes about the 

 migration of birds and who wrote a scientific dissertation on it. Besides 

 he had notes concerning Phytophaenology, Botany, Meteorology etc. and 

 was a very remarkable modern paedagog, who would have reformed the 

 instruction of Natural History if he had lived longer. 



Characteristic however for the tragical destiny of the scientific 

 Hungarian endeavours is, that he could not realise any of his great plans 

 and that his most precious work could only been published at the time, 

 when the same Roumanians, who destroyed the work of his life in the 

 year 1848 and hindered his future scientific activity and were the cause 

 of his early death; are threatening to expropriate and destroy the self- 

 made culture of Transsylvania. 



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