DISTRIBUTION OF THE EUROPEAN AND CAUCASIAN BISON. 7 



the district, when he visited the glacier heights of the Marucha 

 Mountains, near the Pass of Nachar, on his way back from 

 Elbruz in 1865.* On his last journey through the district 

 surrounding the sources of the Laba and Bjellaja, north of the 

 Caucasus, and thence to the source of the Selentschiick, he 

 found Bison, but everywhere in small numbers, not more than 

 two or three together, and on one occasion traces of seven. The 

 arrival of fresh colonists had caused them to forsake their settled 

 habits, and to take to wandering. He frequently met with them, 

 however, about the source of the Little Laba, and especially near 

 the western tributary Uruschtem, and the small lake of Alaus at 

 an altitude of 7-8000 feet. Some thirty or forty years previously 

 they had been found at a height of 5000 feet. The whole district 

 of about 525,000 hectares has been under imperial control since 

 1860, but it is very difficult to guard against poachers, f In the 

 museum at Tiflis there is a unique and beautiful group, set up 

 under Radde's supervision, which represents a fight between a 

 Bison and a Panther. I 



In earlier times Bison europceus was probably distributed over 

 the greater part of the forest zone within the present boundaries 

 of European Russia, as well as on the steppes ; but, like its 

 North American relative, it has gradually disappeared, and is 

 now confined (so far as Europe is concerned) to a single forest 

 district in Lithuania. Augustus III. of Poland, Kurfurst of 

 Saxony, made a reserve, some thirty square miles in extent, for 

 Bison at Bialowicza, in the present government of Grodno, on 

 the Prussian frontier, out of a forest which lay surrounded by 

 desert steppes. § Franz Miiller (Mittheil. der Geogr. Gessels. 

 Wien, 1859, p. 155) gives an exact plan of the whole area, which 

 was enclosed by a strong wooden fence more than three metres 

 high. In one place a stand was erected for the King and his 

 distinguished guests, so that the sportsmen might be safely out of 



* Petermann's ' Mittkeilungen,' 1867, p. 13 ; 1868, p. 72. 



f ' Deutsche Jager-Zeitung,' xxii. p. 49, 



+ ' Jahresbericht des Vereins fur Erdkunde,' Dresden, xv. p. 15. 



& * Deutsche Jiiger-Zeitung,' xxi. p. 287 ; Eichwald, ' Beitrage zur Kennt- 

 niss des russischen Reiehs,' vi. pp. 137, 244 ; ' Zeitsclirift fiir wissenschaftlicbe 

 Geographie,' iii. p. 138 (fide Brandt) ; ' Zoologische Garten,' vii. p. 350 ; 

 xiv. p. 21* 



