682 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



retchie) . The total prohibition of hunting, ordered since the first 

 years of the revolution, has afforded good protection, and in certain 

 regions an increase in numbers has been observed." 



Our information on the Saiga's status in Dzungaria is due chiefly 

 to Douglas Carruthers and J. H. Miller. The latter writes (in Car- 

 ruthers, 1913, pp. 590-600) : 



Its range stretches eastwards, throughout the more desert portions of Russian 

 Turkestan, with the Siberian Railway for its northern limit, and the Trans- 

 Caspian Railway and Tashkent-Kulja post-road for its southern. 



In the vicinity of the low depressions of Lakes Balkash and Ala Kul it is 

 said to be numerous. It has for many years been supposed that the Saiga 

 extended over the Russian-Chinese frontier eastwards to Dzungaria, but I 

 am not aware of any one having actually seen, much less shot one, with the 

 exception of that distinguished Russian explorer, Colonel Kozloff, who men- 

 tions having come across saiga in the Gobi east of Barkul. 



[At Guchen] considerable numbers of its curious amber-coloured horns 

 were hanging up in the Chinese shops ... for sale. The Chinese consider 

 them to possess valuable medicinal properties, and give as much as fifteen 

 "sairs" for a pair. Every year consignments are sent to Pekin .... The high 

 price put on the head of a saiga induces a small army of hunters, mostly 

 Chantos, to spend the summer months in their pursuit. 



[At two days' march north of Ta-shih-tu, at the northern base of the Tian 

 Shan, a native hunter] gave us glowing accounts of his hunting exploits, the 

 number of saiga he had killed, and how at certain seasons they collect into 

 vast herds of as many as a thousand. [Two of the animals were seen here 

 by Miller.] 



[The hunter] told me that he had frequently seen several herds of burkark 

 [the local name for Saiga], numbering hundreds, from this very position [a 

 bluff overlooking the plains] during the month of July. 



From two Chanto saiga-hunters a day's march farther westward, 

 Miller obtained the following information: "During the winter the 

 burkark collect into vast herds, numbering frequently from eight 

 hundred to a thousand, and retire to the lowest and most sandy and 

 saline portions of the plains .... In April they split up into small 

 parties of from two to six and spread over the steppes .... Later 

 in the summer [they] again collect into herds of several hundreds." 



Miller also reports (p. 552) sighting three Saigas on a plain north 

 of Ebi Nor, in western Dzungaria. 



Carruthers states (1913, p. 628) that "the saiga antelope . . . ex- 

 tends across Dzungaria as far as Long. 92 East, but no farther." 

 (As we have seen above, however, Kozloff reported it in the Gobi 

 east of Barkul.) 



"Up to a couple of years before, a large part of the mail coming 

 through Urumchi for transmission to China consisted of the horns 

 of the saiga antelope, which the Chinese use in making medicine. 

 As these were valued at about $150.00 (Chinese) per pair, the mail 

 carriers were held up and robbed so frequently that the department 

 had finally to refuse to take them." (Morden, 1927, p. 258.) 



