226 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION 
of extermination. In Russia it is reported still to exist in 
certain reaches of the Dnjepr, the Volga, and the Vistula; 
but the information concerning its settlements on those 
rivers is at once scanty and indefinite. A few years ago 
5 were captured in the Camarene region at the mouth of 
the Rhone. In Central Germany, on the Elbe and its 
tributary the Mulde, stricter protection has favoured the 
preservation of those shy animals to such an extent that 
a careful observer recently estimated their numbers in this, 
the most populous quarter of their habitat, at about 150. 
Few members of the large and important Order Ungulata 
are now found wild in Europe. In their valuable work, Die 
Sdugetiere Transkuspiens, Radde and Walter give an interest- 
ing comparison of the Mammalia of three different provinces 
of the Eremian sub-region,—Persia, Transcaspia, and the 
Turcoman Territory. The most remarkable fact they exhibit 
is the almost total absence of ruminants in the country 
between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral. Here only 
three species now appear to exist. One of these, the strange- 
looking antelope, Saiga tarturica, inhabits the steppes of 
Southern Russia; according to Professor A. Nehring it once 
ranged as far west as the Pyrenees. It is a slow-paced, 
timid, stupid antelope, and becomes an easy prey not only to 
wolves, but to the Tartars of the Steppes, who do not disdain 
its musky flesh; and though it is often domesticated, it is 
being rapidly driven to the eastward of the Caspian. Indeed, 
the existence of the Saiga, like that of several interesting 
members of the last Order which inhabit the debatable land 
of the Europasian and Eremian sub-regions, is subject to 
conditions which preclude all hope of its name appearing 
much longer in the list of the mammals of Europe. 
The only other antelope now found in Europe, the Chamois 
(Rupicapra tragus), is, like its more robust companion, the 
magnificent Ibex or Rock-goat (Steinbock), Capra ibex, being 
gradually driven to loftier altitudes in its restricted habitat, 
where the increasing scarcity of food, the greater severity of 
the climate, together with the storm, the crevasse, and the 
avalanche, conspire to precipitate its extermination. 
The graceful Mouftlon or Wild Sheep of Corsica and 
Sardinia has recently become so rare that more than 50 are 
