The Zoologist — October, 1873. 3731 



healthy feehng which is steadily, if not rapidly, growing in 

 favoui' of many birds which have long been persecuted. 



8. Your Committee respectfully urge that they may be re- 

 appointed. 



The Ilammoth still in the land of the Living. — The 'New York 

 World ' describes an interview between one of its correspondents and 

 Cheriton Batchmatchuik, a Russian convict, lately pardoned by the Govern- 

 ment in consideration of his wonderful discoveries in Siberia, to which 

 territory he had been banished for smuggliug. Cheriton had escaped from 

 the mines of Nartchinsk, and having reached the mountains struck south- 

 ward for the Araoor River, intending to get to China. Meeting Cossacks, 

 he again turned north, and essayed what seemed to be a pass in the great 

 Altai range. For thirty days he scrambled about seeking in vain for an 

 outlet. At length he got out to the north, together with one of the branches 

 of the Lena river. He then turned eastward, and was entering the gorges 

 of the Aldan mountains when winter overtook him. Across the snow, how- 

 ever, came vast troops of animals, all going the same way. Cheriton 

 followed them, arrived at the summit of the range, and there, far below his 

 feet, landlocked between great ranges of hills on all sides, lay a valley fifty 

 miles wide by one hundred and fifty long, and centred by a blue lake. 

 He descended and found the valley warm and fertile, and full of animals. 

 At night he made a fire and lay down beside it to sleep. During the 

 night— "Dark shadowy forms came over the water, splashing towards 

 him, and seemed to seek what his fire might mean. The trampling of 

 great beasts, that crushed the willow-stalks like pipe-stems, on their way to 

 the water's edge, and that came and stood over him, breathing heavily and 

 slow as they seemed to gaze at the fire with stupid wonder, made him afraid 

 each moment of being overrun. AVild eyes, reflecting the fire-light, shone 

 around him out of the gloom upon all sides, and wilder cries and howls 

 gave new horrors to his position. He sprang to his feet almost paralysed 

 with fright, and fired off his pistol at the nearest intruder. The echo of the 

 shot rang long around him, and it seemed the signal for the cries of a 

 thousand new monsters to burst forth. There were mad, plunging rushes 

 of frightened beasts around him that made the ground tremble ; a peculiar 

 long, shrill, quavering shriek sounded over the lake, and was answered by a 

 harsh, full-guttural bellow near at hand. When Cheriton awoke it was 

 broad day, and there were no traces of the animals that Iiad disturbed him 

 over night, except the paths they had worn going down to the water. Tn 

 these paths he saw the deep-planted spoor of some animal larger than any- 

 thing of the sort he had ever before beheld. His first care was to 

 seek some place to pass the next night, where he could be free from 



