HE1MAWS DATCII. 103 



ground appeared to be a regular bear den. The 

 quantity of fruit one meets with in these Circassian 

 forests compensates in some measure for perse- 

 cutions of the ' wolf's tooth ' and other thorny 

 creepers. Large apples, walnuts, grapes, ' fourmar ' 

 (an edible berry for which I do not know any other 

 name), medlars, blackberries, dewberries, and a 

 kind of scarlet plum, occur frequently, and where- 

 ever they occur the trees are smashed into ruins 

 by the bears. You begin to get some notion of 

 the power of a bear when you have seen the enor- 

 mous boughs he lias broken in his greed for fruit. 

 To-night the jackals were calling all round us, but 

 the wily little beasts never gave me a shot. 



In the morning Yepheem woke us with the 

 pleasant intelligence that our horses had been 

 stolen. A drover had passed along the coast 

 whilst we were shooting the day before, and 

 suspicion immediately settled on his party. Of 

 course after this news there was no hunting for us 

 to-day, for while Ivan and Yepheem scoured the 

 country for our missing steeds, I had to sit at home 

 and watch. At nightfall the best news they could 

 give me was that the Cossacks on the station at 

 which we had slept on our way hither had lost six 

 of their horses at the same time. 



I had time during the day to examine the insect 

 life about our camp, and amongst the butterflies I 

 noticed all three meadow browns, quantities of very 



