SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. 



gans, as they call them here, there is nothing but 

 steppe. On all points, except the seaside of the 

 view, a treeless prairie; no hills, no houses, scarcely 

 even a bush to break the monotony of bare or 

 weed-grown waste. On the right of the post-road 

 by which we are travelling (a mere beaten track 

 and really no road at all) run the lines of the 

 Indo-European Telegraph Company, their neat 

 slim posts of iron contrasting not unfavourably 

 with the crooked, misshapen posts which support 

 the Russian lines on our left. Unimportant as 

 these might appear elsewhere, they are important 

 objects here, where they are the only landmarks 

 to man, and the only substitute for trees to the 

 fowl of the ah*. 



All along the road on either side of us the 

 wires are now becoming lined with kestrels, just 

 up evidently, and looking as though they were 

 giving themselves a shake, and rubbing their eyes 

 preparatory to a day's sport amongst the beetles 

 and field-mice that swarm on the steppe. The 

 number of kestrels round Kertcli is something 

 astonishing, and I almost think that with the other 

 hawks, the blue hen harrier, kites and crows, they 

 would almost outnumber the sparrows of the town. 

 Now, too, our lovely summer visitants, the golden- 

 throated bee-eaters, begin to shoot and poise 

 swallow-like over the heads of the tall yellow 

 hollyhock growing in wild profusion over the 



