THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA. 135 



siderable. Some animals, for example the beaver,^-^ seem already 

 to have been exterminated; and others, especially the much-prized 

 sable, have withdrawn from the inhabited districts into the interior 

 of the forest. Everywhere in Siberia one hears the common com- 

 plaint, that game becomes scarcer every year; and it is certain that 

 from one decennium to another the diminution is perceptible. For 

 this man is not wholly responsible; the forest-fires and the devas- 

 tating epidemics which now and then break out are probably as 

 much, if not more, to blame. At the same time, no Siberian ever 

 realizes that a temporary sparing of the game is the first condition 

 of its preservation. Sportsman-like hunting is unknown; the 

 most varied means are used to kill as many animals as possible. 

 Gun and rifle are mere accessories; pitfalls and nets, spring-guns 

 and poison are the most important agents employed by natives and 

 immigrants alike. 



"Game" to the Siberian means every animal which he can in 

 any way use after its death, the elk and the flying squirrel, the 

 tiger and the weasel, the capercaillie and the magpie. What the 

 superstition of one race spares falls as a booty to the other; animals 

 whose flesh the Russians despise are delicacies to the Mongolian 

 palate. Ostiaks and Samoyedes take young foxes, martens, bears, 

 owls, swans, geese, and other creatures, treat them tenderly as long 

 as they are young, care for them sedulously until the fur or plumage 

 is fully developed, and then kill them, eating the flesh and selling 

 the skin. The number of skins brought from Siberia to the 

 markets there and in Europe is computed in millions: the number 

 used in the country itself is much smaller, but stiU very consider- 

 able. The quantity of furred, and especially of feathered game, 

 which is transported to a distance in a frozen state, also mounts up 

 to many hundreds of thousands. Along with the furs of mammals 

 the skins of certain birds are at present much exported, especially 

 those of swans, geese, gulls, grebes, and magpies, which, like the 

 furs, are used in making muffs, collars, and hat trimmings. A 

 single merchant in the unimportant town of Tjukalinsk passes 

 through his hands every year thirty thousand plover-skins, ten 

 thousand swan-skins, and about a hundred thousand magpies; and 



