EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 335 



tains, though very difficult to get at in summer. The Elk was formerly 

 more numerous in the northern districts, but has now become extremely 

 rare ; and the single head which Mr. Elwes brought back resembles those 

 which he had seen from European Russia, differing somewhat in the set of 

 the horns from the Elk of Norway. The Roe (Capreolns pygargus, Pallas) 

 is very common in some parts of the Altai and Sayansk Mountains, and is 

 a very much larger and finer animal than the European Roe. The wide 

 spread of the horns is not a peculiarity of this species, as it would appear 

 from the nine heads which were exhibited— six from the Upper Yenesei 

 Valley and three from the Altai — that this peculiarity is by no means 

 constant, and that there is nothing but their size to distinguish them from 

 the European race. The Musk-Deer is also very abundant near the upper 

 limit of forest growth, and is snared in quantities by the natives. As many 

 as two hundred skins were seen in one merchant's store. Reindeer are 

 said by Radde to occur in some parts of the Eastern Sayansk range, where 

 they are also kept in a domesticated state ; but, so far as could be ascer- 

 tained, they do not exist in any part of the Altai. 



Birds were not so numerous as expected, although Cranes and Ducks 

 were plentiful in the marshes of the Kurai and Tchuja Steppes. Mr. 

 Elwes was astonished to find a Scoter breeding here, which proves to be 

 the species described as Oidemia stejnegeri, and which is an inhabitant of 

 the N.W. American coast and North Pacific. It has never been hitherto 

 procured, as he was informed by M. Alpheraky (who is at present engaged 

 on a monograph of the Anatidce of the Russian Empire), farther west than 

 the Upper Amur. 



Game-birds were very scarce, though Capercaillie, Ptarmigan, and Quail 

 were observed ; and in the highest and barest parts of the mountains the 

 magnificent Tetragallus altaicus was not uncommon, though very hard 

 to approach. 



The fauna and flora are materially influenced by the very peculiar 

 climate of the Altai, which has great extremes of heat and cold, and is 

 subject to heavy thunderstorms, which fall as snow and hail in the higher 

 regions, almost daily throughout the summer. During the whole of the 

 two months the party were in the mountains they only had seven or eight 

 days quite free from rain or snow. These heavy storms seem mostly to 

 come from the eastward, and from the high mountains at the source of the 

 Kemchik River, which is the westernmost tributary of the Yenesei. To 

 show what sort of climate it is, it was mentioned that there were large beds 

 of unmelted snow close to the camp, at about 7000 ft., all through July. 



Last year the Hon. Cecil Rhodes had five hundred young Rooks sent 

 out to South Africa in order to establish a colony in his country place, and 



