As a member of the Independency and Forty-Eighter Party he got in touch with Lajos Kossuth, whom he met in Turin multiple times (1887, 1892). In 1879, by Kossuth’s recommendation, he was elected as a member of the Diet of Hungary, representing Szeged.

He called out the dangers of phylloxera (‘The Case of Phylloxera’, Budapest, 1877; ‘Phylloxera’, Budapest, 1879) and described how foreign countries dealt with it. Realizing that phylloxera could not do any harm on sandy soil, he began advocating viticulture on sand.

He played a major part in the establishment of the animal welfare association in 1883. He was essentially the founder of Hungarian ornithology, the scientific study of birds. He was commissioned by the Natural History Association to travel to Scandinavia in 1888 in order to gather data for a book about birdlife. He also organized the II. International Ornithological Congress in Budapest; afterwards he established the Hungarian Ornithological Centre in 1893 as a department of the Hungarian National Museum, which he also became its director.

He founded the journal ‘Aquila’ in 1894, which was the centrepiece of Hungarian ornithological research. He wrote the book ‘Birds Useful and Birds Harmful’ (A madarak káráról és hasznáról, 1901) by request of minister of agriculture Ignác Darányi, which was a huge success. He organized sections of the 1896 National Millennium Exhibition depicting shepherding and fishery. He was an avid collector of customs and items from ancient Hungarian professions (fishing and shepherding); his fishery collection displayed in 1885 national exhibition proved to be a great success. It was improved for the National Millennium Exhibition in 1896; then displayed in the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture and later relocated to the Ethnographic Museum. He wrote the ‘Book of Hungarian Fishery’ (A magyar halászat könyve), a two-volume monograph commissioned by the Natural History Association.

He conducted research in the field of pastoral life since 1891, publishing his findings in various studies and presenting his vast collection of items at exhibits; however, he could never finish writing a comprehensive book on the subject. In the early 20^th century he wanted to create a collection based on ancient professions for the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture. Eventually they did open such an exhibition 1907; however the majority of the items on display were later lost during the wars. He also compiled the historical overview of Hungarian animal husbandry, as well as a dictionary for its related terminology. In 1891, he discovered that the so-called ‘Bársony-ház’ finds unearthed at Miskolc were prehistoric tools, thus being the first to launch palaeoarchaeological research in Hungary; he also proposed palaeoarchaeological excavations to be conducted in the Bükk Mountains.

He spent most of his late life at his holiday home known as “Pele-lak” (which is his memorial house today) in Alsóhámor where he grew up as a child. He supported the founding of Miskolc and Borsod County’s museum, which was named after him in 1953. He was the founding member of the Hungarian Society of Ethnography and later its chairman in 1892. He received the French Legion of Honour in 1900. His final resting place since 1965 is in the Hámori cemetery in Miskolc.