29G Mr. H. J. Elwcs o)i the 



south and west of the district explored by Kindermann. 

 Though uotliing has been published as to his collection, 

 I am able, through the kindness of Herr Tancre, to give 

 a list of tlie Rliopalocera, which includes several species 

 not found by Kindermann, most of which appear to belong 

 rather to the fauna of Turkestan than to that of the Altai. 



The butterflies of the ranges to the south and Avest of 

 the Altai, known as the Alatau, are fairly well-known 

 from the collections made by Haberhauer and others ; but 

 of those of the whole central and eastern Altai we were 

 quite ignorant. 



When the opening of the Siberian railway made it 

 possible to reach the country in a reasonable time, without 

 a winter sledge journey of several weeks' duration, I deter- 

 mined to visit Siberia ; partly with the object of hunting 

 the great wild sheep (Ovis ammon, Pall.) which is found 

 on the Mongolian frontier, and partly with the hope of 

 adding something to our knowledge of the butterflies, 

 birds, and plants of Asia, whose geographical distribution 

 and variation has always been my favourite study. I was 

 also very anxious to see whether there was any evidence 

 of a boundary line between the eastern and western 

 Holarctic regions, and to reach if possible the sources of 

 the Yenesei river, which was thought by my late friend, 

 Mr. H. Seebohm, to be the probable line of demarcation 

 between the birds of eastern and western Siberia.* 



I was fortunate enouoh to find a most excellent com- 

 panion in Mr. W. A. L. Fletcher, who had previously 

 accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Littledale on their celebrated 

 journey through Tibet, and who, though his principal 

 object was to hunt big game, very kindly assisted me in 

 collecting on the journey to and from the hunting ground. 



I cannot find that any English traveller except Atkinson 

 has ever written anything about the part of the country we 

 visited, but before giving a sketch of the route and the nature 

 of the country in which my collections were made, 1 must 

 acknowledge the kind assistance I received from M. Serge 

 Alpheraky, who introduced me to a Russian naturalist, 

 M. Berezowsky, who accompanied us as far as the last 

 Russian outpost, and would, if he had remained with us, 

 have given me much needed assistance in interpreting 

 and collecting. As, however, he left us at Kuch Agatch, 



* Cf. H. J. Elwes on Zoology and Botany of Altai Mountainp, 

 Linn. Soc. Juurn. Zool. vol. xxvii, pp. 23 — 46, 1898. 



