NO. 30 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I912 A 
RoEEZOOLOGICAL EXPRDIMIONJOEDR] THEODORE EY MAN LO@ 
THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS, SIBERIA AND MONGOLIA 
By the invitation of Dr. Theodore Lyman, of Harvard University, 
the National Museum was enabled to participate, in cooperation with 
the Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, in a zoological expedition 
to the Altai Mountains of Siberia and Mongolia. As this region 
was unrepresented by specimens in the National Museum, the 
opportunity afforded was an exceptionally important one. The 
expedition was under the personal direction of Doctor Lyman who 
Tic. 7—Collecting camp in the Altai Mountains near the Mongolian border. 
Photograph by Hollister. 
devoted his time chiefly to the collecting of large game. The National 
Museum was represented by Mr. N. Hollister, assistant curator of 
mammals, who had as his assistant in the work of collecting the 
smaller vertebrates, Conrad Kain, of Vienna, Austria. 
The party left America in May, 1912, and returned in Sep- 
tember of the same year. It entered Asia by way of the Trans- 
Siberian Railroad. The railway was left at Novonikolzevsk, on the 
Obi River, and the long journey southward to the last Russian post 
near the Mongolian border was made by river boat and tarantass 
in 17 days. At this outpost, Kosh-Agatch, Kalmuk and Tartar 
guides and packers were secured, and the frontier range to the 
southward was then explored for a month. The collecting was done 
