CHAPTER III 



• STEPPE FAUNAS AND THE TEMPERATE 

 STEPPES OF ASIA AND NORTH AMERICA 



To the south of the coniferous forest of Asia lies 

 a belt of varying width, characterized by the absence 

 or scarcity of trees, and by the periodical growth of 

 grasses and other herbaceous plants. This belt of 

 steppe land is continually merging into desert, the cold 

 desert of the high uplands, or the warm desert of the 

 rainless regions to the south. Similarly, the forest sends 

 long feelers into it,wherever the banks of a water-course, 

 or some favouring condition of soil or local variation of 

 climate, make this possible. As Central Asia generally 

 is a country of high mean elevation, and as it is remote 

 from the sea, the climate is continental in character, 

 very hot in summer and very cold in winter. The 

 region is also continually swept by very severe storms, 

 injurious alike to plant and animal life. Further, 

 though the rainfall is always sUght, and chiefly con- 

 fined to the summer period, there is some reason to 

 beheve that it is subject to great variation, perhaps 

 cyclical in character. 



This very brief description may be said to sum up 

 the main features of regions of temperate steppes, and 

 the pecuHar conditions cause them to be inhabited by 

 special types of animals. Some of the conditions which 

 we noted in the tundra are here repeated, for indeed 

 the tundra is but a special type of steppe. Thus in 

 both we have a seasonal and highly local abundance of 



