98 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



a steppe landscape; they help to form and complete the peculiarity 

 of this region; in short, the steppes also have their characteristic 

 fauna. 



The places at which the animals chiefly congregate are the lakes 

 and pools, rivers and brooks. Before the existence of a lake is 

 revealed by the periodically or permanently flooded reed-forests sur- 

 rounding it, hundreds and thousands of marsh-birds and swimmers 

 have told the practised observer of the still invisible sheet of water. 

 In manifoldly varied flight, fishing-gulls, common gulls, and herring- 

 gulls sweep and glide over its surface; more rapidly and less steadily 

 do the terns pursue the chase over the reeds and the pools which 

 these inclose; in mid-air the screaming eagles circle; ducks, geese, 

 and swans fly from one part of the lake to another; kites hover over 

 the reeds; even sea-eagles and pelicans now and then show face. 

 As to the actual inhabitants of these lakes, as to the number of 

 species and individuals, one can only surmise until one has stationed 

 oneself on the banks, or penetrated into the thicket of reeds. In 

 the salt-steppe, as is readily intelligible, the animal life is sparser. 

 With hasty flight most of the water-birds pass over the inhospitable, 

 salt-covered shores, as they wend from lake to lake; only the black- 

 headed gulls and fishing-gulls are willing to rest for a time by the 

 not wholly dry, but shallow, briny basins; only the sheldrake fishes 

 there in company with the charming avocet, who seeks out just 

 these very places, and, living in pairs or small companies, spends 

 his days stirring up the salt water, swinging his delicate head with 

 upturned bill from side to side indefatigably. Of other birds I only 

 saw a few, a yellow or white wagtail, a lapwing, a plover; the rest 

 seem to avoid the uninviting desolateness of these brine pools, 

 all the more that infinitely more promising swamps and pools are 

 to be found quite near them. About the lake itself abundant food 

 seems to be promised to all comers. Thus not only do thousands of 

 marsh and water birds settle on its surface, but even the little 

 songsters and passerine birds, unprovided for by the dry steppes, 

 come hither. Not the fishers alone, but other hungry birds of prey 

 find here their daily bread. The steppe-lakes cannot indeed be 

 compared with those of North Africa, where, during winter, the 



