64 SIBKKIA. 



iitarios being oxtmonliiiarily rich in tlicin, Ul ilic stuig'-on family. ih<,' lucal spocios of bie- 

 luga attains cnonnoiis diinonsions (huso oiicntalis Pall, iiml arnurcnsis Pall.), weighing some- 

 limes from 30 to 50 pouds. The sturgeon of this region (slurio Sdm-nkii Br.) likewise differs 

 from the Russian type, hut tlie sterlet belongs to the Ciuspiau speries (acipencer ruthenus L,). 

 Two species of salmon which ascend the Amour and Ussuri, to the present day in countless 

 numbers, have a great significance for the country, the gorbusha (trutta proteus Pall.) and 

 ket (trutta lagocephalus Pull.). Of the other fish c(jmmon to Siberia are the delicious taimen 

 (salmo [liiviatills Pall.), the char (salmo coregonoides Pall.), the smelt (salmo eperlanus), the 

 carp (cypriiuis carpis) and eelpont (lota vulgaris Cus.). But there are also a few fish 

 wliicli are extremely characteristic of the Amour basin. Among these are to be reckoned 

 the Amour fish (pristidion Scmenovii Dyb.), the daur silarus (silurus asotus Pall.), the 

 barbodon locustris L., plagiogratlius Yelskii Dyb., the white fish (culter abramoides Dyb,), the 

 vcrkhogliadka (cutter Sieboldi Dyb.), the verkhobriushka (culter lucidus Dyb.) and the local 

 variety of pike (csox Reicborti Dyb.), the latter attaining an enormous size. 



The population of the Arnouv country consists of only 90,000 inhabitants of both sexes, 

 among whom are 3,000 wandering natives. The majority of these natives (Orochons, Mang- 

 (iiiiitsi, liirars) belong to tlie Tuiiguz tribes, and only the minority to the Ghiliaks, who have 

 nothing do with them ethnographicully, and speak a language of their own. The latter are more 

 numerous only on the Amour frith and on the seacoast of the Littoral teiTitory, as also on 

 the island of Sakhalin. The Ghiliaks together with the Ainos, Kurils and ancient aborigenes 

 of Kanicliatka belong to a special coast tribe which once, occupied the whole shore of the 

 Eastern Ocean inclusive of the Japanese islands, at least the northern islands, the Kuril line 

 and the peninsula of Kamchatka. They were driven out from their places of aboile on the Jap- 

 anese series of islands by the Japanese, and on the coast by the Manchurian tribes. 



The Ghiliaks are principally fishermen and are engaged in sea industries, while among the 

 Manchurian tribes, as ancient cattle breeders, the polar form of this occupation, the rearing 

 of reindeer, is in a state of more or less equilibrium with trapping and fishing. Much more 

 numerous than these weak and it may be said dying-out tribes of Tunguz in the Amour 

 country is the settled agricultural Tunguz tribe of Manchurians. These Manchurians, now 

 numbering 14,000, occupied in the times preceding the Russian dominion an excellent area 

 for colonization, upon the left bank of the Amour, opposite the Chinese tomi of Aigun 

 and by the terms of the Aigun and Pekin treaties remain established upon Russian terri- 

 tory, but upon their own lands, as Chinese subjects, and are occupied mainly with agri- 

 culture. To this settled native population must be added further about 1,000 Coreas now 

 established in the country. 



Russian immigrants -still form SO per cent of the population of the country. They have 

 settled in more or less considerable villages along the whole course of the Amour with the 

 exception of those portions adjacent to its banks where constant inundations impede the set- 

 tled and agricultural mode of life of the Russian colonies, as also upon the extensive and 

 excellent area for purposes of colonization stretching along both sides of the lower reaches 

 of the Zeya and its lower tributaries. Another area adapted to colonization is mo\ing grad-, 

 ually into the heart of the country, along the river Bureya and the neighbouring minor 



