1 7:t TRAVELS IN UPPER 



cold regions, and under a burning sky, I should 

 have been extremely diffident in assigning a de- 

 cided identity to two animals, the descriptions of 

 which, nevertheless, presented me with numerous 

 and unequivocal conformities. 



Buffon, who never had an opportunity of ob- 

 serving the jerbo, and who had not seen, any more 

 than myself, the alagtaga, except in Gmelin's de- 

 scription, had presumed that these two quadrupeds 

 were of the same species. I, who have examined 

 the jerbo very closely, was enabled to express my- 

 self in a more positive manner. But neither Buffon 

 nor 1 have advanced that the gerboises of eastern 

 Tartkny, of the deserts of Siberia, and nf the regions 

 leyond the Baikal^ were all similar to that of which 

 Gmdin has spoken, nor even that this last existed 

 in those countries. We have only admitted the 

 testimony of a man of gravity, whose remarks are 

 deposited in the collection of the Imperial Aca-* 

 demy of Petersburg!), and this testimony, it must 

 be admitted, is still far from being destroyed, 



I shall confine myself, Sir, \o your own quota- 

 tions. It is certain that when M. Pallas, whose 

 celebrity is most honourably acquired, communi- 

 cates his particular observations, not the shadow of 

 doubt can be raised against them. We must, ac- 

 cordingly, consider as incontestable that, in the 

 3 northern 



