SPORT IN THE CRIMEA. 



plain; hoopoes, with broad crests erect, peck and 

 strut bantam-like by the roadside, while every now 

 and again the magnificent azure wings of the ; roller' 

 glitter in the morning sun among the flowers. 



The ' bleak steppeland ' is what you always 

 hear of, and shudder as you hear, dread Siberian 

 visions being conjured up at the mere name. But 

 who that has seen the steppes in the later days of 

 spring, or in the glow of midsummer, would apply 

 such an epithet to lands that in their season are as 

 richly clad in flowers as any prairie of the West ? 

 Long strips of wild tulip, Nature's cloth of gold, 

 blue cornflower, crow's-foot and bird's-eye, the 

 canary- coloured hollyhock and crimson wild pea, 

 all vie in compensating the steppeland for her 

 chill snow-shroud in the months that are gone and 

 to come. 



Rich as the land is, the crops by the roadside 

 are few and paltry, the chief being rye, maize, 

 millet, and sunflowers. The sunflowers are culti- 

 vated for their seed, which is either used for 

 making oil, or more generally is sold in a dry 

 state as ' cernitchkies.' ' Cernitchkies ' furnish the 

 Malo Russ, male and female, with one of their 

 most favourite means of wasting time. Go where 

 you will, at any time, in Kertch, you will find 

 people cracking these sunflower seeds, and trying 

 to make two bites of the kernel. At every street 

 corner you find a stall where they are sold, and 



