Araneæ hungariæ…conscriptæ a Cornelio Chyzer et Ladislao Kulczyński

Abstract

OWING to the homogeneous character of the fauna of Central Europe, this work, although purporting to deal merely with the spiders of Hungary, forms an admirable basis for the study of the species that inhabit the rest of the continent. The determination of the species occurring in the area over which the authors' researches have extended, has of necessity involved a comparison between them and the species previously recorded from Scandinavia, Prussia, Great Britain and France by Clerck, Westring, Menge, Koch, Blackwall, Walckenaer, Simon and others. The fact that so many naturalists have worked more or less independently, sometimes indeed contemporaneously, at the spiders of their respective countries has unavoidably caused a great deal of clashing in the specific nomenclature; and the endeavour to clear away the resulting confusion certainly forms the most difficult part of the labours of an author who attempts at the present time to monograph the spiders of any area in Europe. It is evident that Dr. Chyzer and Prof. Kulczyński have in nowise shirked their duty in this respect; and although it is improbable that their efforts have met in every instance with the success they deserve, it would be unfair to lay to their charge the blame for any failures that may hereafter come to light. Rather must the responsibility rest with those of their predecessors and contemporaries who, especially when dealing with the more obscure species, have failed to realise the importance of setting aside, as a standard for future comparison, one typical example out of a series of specimens upon which a description was based, or have regarded subsequently and, as results have shown, often wrongly identified examples as of equal importance to the one upon which the species was originally established.

Araneæ hungariæ conscriptæ a Cornelio Chyzer et Ladislao Kulczyński.

Vols. i.–ii. (Budapesth: 1891–1897.