von Schreibers, the director of the Vienna "Naturalien- 

 kabinett," the forerunner of the Naturhistorisches Mu- 

 seum in Vienna. At the Suggestion of Schreibers, Fitzinger 

 tumed himself to the study of ichthyology and herpe- 

 tology and in 1817 he quit his job at the pharmacy and 

 took on a volunteer job as curator of the fish, amphibian, 

 and reptilian collections. He performed this completely 

 free Service to the Vienna museum for 27 years. In 1844 

 his fondest wish was fulfilled; he received an appoint- 

 ment as "Custosadjunkt" at the museum. Until that time 

 he had supported himself through a position with a po- 

 litical party in Nieder Österreich which had kindly al- 

 lowed him enough spare time for his museum work. 

 Because of the demands on his time made by the party, 

 in 1 835 he had stopped working on fishes, and devoted 

 himself mainly to reptiles and amphibians, but upon his 

 appointment to the museum, he also took control of the 

 mammal coUection. 



In autumn 1861, at the age of 59, he was retired by 

 the museum but this did not mean that his work as a 

 zoologist was finished. One year later he took over the 

 management of a private zoological garden in Munich, 

 though it was to be for only a short time. In 1863 he left 

 for Budapest to take a position as director of a fledgling 



ZOO, then unbuilt. He remained in this position for three 

 years and then retired completely from official duties. 

 He lived in Budapest until 1873 and then settled in 

 Hietzing, close to Vienna, where he died on 20 Septem- 

 ber 1884. 



Fitzinger 'S Scientific Work 



Fitzinger published his first herpetological paper when 

 he was barely 20 years old. After notes on a crocodile 

 from Santo Domingo that was found alive in Vienna and 

 on snakes with homs, there flowed a longer series of 

 essays on the reptiles and amphibians of Austria, a sub- 

 ject to which he later had occasion to retum. Later he 

 wrote an article, in French, about the reptiles living in 

 the Vienna "Menagerie" and then his first description of 

 a new species,Ablepharuspannonicus{\S24). Unfortu- 

 nately, this had already been described by M. H. C. 

 Lichtenstein, the director of the zoological museum in 

 Berlin (Mertens and Müller, 1928: 44). 



A milestone in Fitzinger 's herpetological career came 

 in 1826, when his first important work was published, 

 "Neue Classification der Reptihen nach ihren natürlichen 

 Verwandschaften" [here reprinted]. In this work he di- 





..,;-.^^^ 







-- -■ ^x 





m 





,^-.Z^ 







^ 



i^ 1/ c/yoe CtX^, 



/XC/l/^t^'^£^*CK, 



^..- 



--■■ «» - 





FiGURE 2. Sample of Fitzinger 's handwriting from a list of herpetological specimens sent to the Rijksmuseum in Leiden in 1 827 

 (courtesy Marinas S. Hoogmoed). 



IV 



