590 DZUNGARIA 



stunned by the shock, and a well-placed second bullet 

 finished the business. 



I will now relate our experience with another denizen 

 of the plains, one that has rarely been seen by Europeans 

 in its native haunts. Of all the beasts in nature, few 

 exceed the saiga {Saiga tartarica) for grotesqueness of 

 form or gait. He seems to be altogether a mistake, to 

 have been made after all other beasts, when the ingenuity 

 of the Creator had already been exhausted. He is not 

 closely related to any other animal, and is a puzzle to 

 naturalists, who class him with the antelope, though he 

 is a disgrace to that graceful family. His horns resemble 

 the gazelle's in shape, though not in colour, while the 

 skull is like that of no other beast. The shape of his 

 body, the texture of his coat, and his bleating, all remind 

 one of a sheep, while the shnking, stooping gait is more 

 akin to that of some of the smaller jungle-living deer. 

 His chief characteristic is, of course, the great soft 

 " Roman " nose, which is out of all proportion to the 

 body. 



In the Pleistocene period the saiga ranged over 

 Western Europe, even as far as Great Britain, but at 

 the present day the southern steppes of Russia between 

 the Don and Volga form its western Umit. From there 

 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- Kulj a 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 



