THE STEPPES. 



271 



surrounded only by a few struggling poplars, but slightly relieving the dreary and 

 monotonous aspect of nature. These are the true steppes that have been fittingly 

 compared to the wilderness, with which have often been confounded those 

 flowery steppes farther north, supplying a large portion of its farinaceous food to 

 the west of Europe. Here trees grow with difficulty, and public gardens are 

 developed with great labour and cost round the large cities, often only to disappear 

 in a few hours, devoured by those clouds of locusts which darken the mid- day sun. 

 The grassy steppes are enlivened by an abundant, if not a varied fauna. On 

 issuing from the gloomy forest these sunny lands become a living solitude. The bison, 

 buffiilo, wild boar, wild horse, and other animals spoken of by early travellers have 

 disappeared, but the crust is everywhere undermined by galleries harbouring the 



Fig. 129.— PiNSK Marsh. 

 Scale 1 : 480,000. 



E of P. 



_ 5 Miles. 



suslik {CytiUus rulgaris) and the marmot, the prey of the wolf, wild dog, and man. 

 Multitudes of water- fowl, herons, storks, and flamingoes, ducks and mews, frequent 

 the ponds and marshes ; larks and other songsters enliven the meadows and 

 thickets; eagles, vultures, and other birds of prey perch on the finger-posts, 

 heedless of the passing wayfarer. Butterflies flutter in myriads, and swarms of 

 bees sip the honey of the flowery mead. Before it was invaded by the plough, 

 TJkrania of all regions answered best, perhaps, to the description of a land "flowing 

 with honey." For it overflowed not only in the hollow trunks, but in the cavities 

 of the ground, river bluffs, and gorges. Owing to the nature of the land, the bee, 

 like most other animals of the steppe, man included, is a troglodyte, and, where 

 agriculture is carried on, the swarms hibernate in large underground chambers. 



