282 TURUKANSK AND THE WAY THITHER 



sugar, cream, bread, and occasionally soup, fish, beef, or 

 game. Frequently we were treated as guests, and our 

 offers of payment refused. The yemschiks, or drivers, 

 were always very civil, and some of the younger ones 

 were fine-looking fellows. However numerous our horses 

 were, we only paid for three, at the rate of three kopeks 

 per verst per horse, to which we added vodka money — 

 ten kopeks to each yemschik. At most of the houses furs 

 were to be bought. I picked up a fine bear-skin, for which 

 I paid six roubles : ermine was to be had in almost any 

 quantity at from ten to fifteen kopeks a skin. Squirrel* 

 was even more abundant at about the same price. Skins 

 of a light-coloured stone-marten, t which the peasants 

 called korlornok, were occasionally offered to us at fifty 

 kopeks to a rouble each. I bought two gluttons' skins, one 

 for four and the other for five roubles. Otter and blue fox| 



* The grey squirrel {Sciurus vulgaris) is a Palsearctic quadruped, being repre- 

 sented on the American continent by a closely allied form {Sciurus kudsonius). In 

 the British Islands only the red variety occurs, but in Siberia every intermediate 

 form is found between red and grey squirrels. 



t The beech- marten (Martes foina) has been recorded as a British quadruped, 

 but recent investigations seem to have proved that the pine-marten {Maries abietum) 

 is the only species found in our islands. Both species are strictly palaearctic, and 

 neither of them is found on the American continent ; indeed, it is doubtful if 

 their range extends into Asia. In Siberia they are represented by the allied 

 species {Martes sibirica) mentioned above. 



X The blue fox, as it is called in its summer dress, when it is of a bluish-grey 

 colour, or the arctic fox, as it is called in the snow-white winter dress (Vulpes 

 lagopus), is a circumpolar quadruped. The Siberian merchants in Yeneseisk, as 

 well as the Hudson Bay merchants in London, maintain the distinctness of the 

 two forms, and attempt to prove their statements by producing both summer and 

 winter skins of each. A possible explanation is, that like the stoat, the arctic 

 fox changes the colour of its fur with the seasons throughout the greater part of 

 its range ; but towards the northern limit of its distribution the summers are so 

 short that it is not worth while for it to turn dark, whilst towards the southern 

 limit of its range snow does not lie long enough on the ground to make the 

 whiteness of the fur protective. My impression is, however, that the blue fox is 

 a variety of the arctic fox, bearing somewhat the same relation to the latter form 

 as the black fox does to the red fox. It is difficult to explain otherwise the facts 

 that skins of blue fox are obtained very far north, and those obtained in winter 

 have very glossy, long, and thick fur. 



