FAUNA. 241 
of mischief at far too low a figure. Probably 15 millions . 
of roubles, or £2,500,000, would more nearly represent the 
value of the domestic animals destroyed annually by 
wolves in European Russia. To this should be added the 
value of the wild animals destroyed by them. The rein- 
deer alone killed in Siberia would represent a high figure. 
Then there is the loss of human life, which can never be 
accurately known. In 1875 the police reported 161 per- 
sons killed by wolves. 
In severe winters wolves have been seen in villages 
within twelve miles of St. Petersburg, and once or twice I 
have heard of wolves having penetrated even the capital 
itself. I also heard of several head of elk being destroyed 
near Payala, a village near St. Petersburg. The village is 
twelve miles distant from St. Petersburg; it is on the 
Finnish railway, and between it and the Gulf of Finland 
is the forest and hunting lodges of Lachta. In this forest 
bears, wolves, and elks, are found. 
Elk shooting is conducted much in the same way as the 
ordinary battue for bear; but the peasants will sometimes 
follow them for days for the chance of getting a shot. 
My son-in-law gave me the following account of an elk 
hunt near Ejora, on the Neva, in which he took part :— 
‘One evening in early winter information was brought by 
a peasant that a herd or family of elks had been tracked 
to a small wood some miles distant on the opposite side 
of the river. <A party of six were soon formed to go 
armed in quest. It was eleven o’clock at night; they 
crossed the river ; traversed some distance, bivouacked for 
the night ; and at early dawn were again astir. Reaching 
the wood, they found it skirted on the one side by a marsh, 
frozen over with ice of no great thickness, and measures 
to drive the elks thither were speedily resolved on. They 
were accompanied by six peasants, and the twelve men 
were soon stationed in a semi-circle, with the frozen marsh 
for a base. By previous concert they gradually contracted 
R 
