STEPPES OF ASIA AND AMERICA 59 
and a half months every year. Even the Amu Daria, 
in a western region of relatively mild winters, is frozen 
for about a month every year. The steppe animals are 
thus subjected to very unfavourable natural conditions, 
but the high summer temperature, especially during 
the rainy season, means a great intensity of life for 
a short period. 
In giving a brief account of steppe animals, we shall 
limit ourselves chiefly to the steppes of Central Asia 
just described, and, as before, will begin with the 
ungulates, here especially important. 
Perhaps the most characteristic of the steppe ungu- 
lates is the saiga antelope (Saiga tartarica), an ungainly 
animal with rather short legs, the male having a peculiar 
swelling on the face, which makes it appear hook-nosed. 
The animal occurs in thousands in the Kirghiz steppes, 
and the fact that its yellowish coat becomes almost 
white in winter suggests the severity of the climate in 
its home. Formerly it had a much wider distribution 
to the west, its remains having been found even in 
Southern England, as well as in Belgium and Southern 
France. In the historic period it has been gradually 
retreating eastwards, thus losing the ground which its 
ancestors conquered in the ages when steppe con- 
ditions were more widely spread than at present. The 
antelopes are also represented in the steppes by two 
kinds of gazelles, the so-called Persian gazelle (G. sub- 
gutturosa), which extends to the Gobi desert, and the 
Mongolian gazelle (@. gutturosa), a somewhat larger 
animal; but, generally speaking, the gazelles are more 
characteristic of the warmer deserts to the south. 
No less than three kinds of horse-like animals haunt 
the Asiatic steppe—the tarpan or wild horse (Hquus 
caballus), Prejevalski’s horse (HZ. prejevalskii), and the 
