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set upon their favourite runs. The Kalmuks use leather slings for the same 
purpose. 
Beyond the Ural River the Saiga extends widely over the Kirghiz Steppes 
of Central Asia north of the Aral. Mr. William Bateson, F'.R.S., has kindly 
favoured us with the following notes of what he heard and saw of the Saiga 
when in this district in 1896-7 :— 
“The Saiga is fairly common in the Kirghiz Steppes, inhabiting the dry tracts covered 
with various species of Artemisia (Kirghiz, Jusun), upon which no doubt it feeds. It is 
not found in the sandy regions of the Kara-kum. I believe also that it does not live in the 
moister steppes, which bear a meadow vegetation. Its northern distribution in West 
Central Asia must therefore be bounded by the valley of the Irtish and its tributaries, 
which is all meadow-land. I met with Saigas first at the end of July 1896, in the 
neighbourhood of Lake Tschalkar, in the Turgai district. In this region we came upon 
their tracks constantly, and occasionally saw herds of various sizes from ten or a dozen 
to about a hundred. When we appeared they made off. In doing so I noticed that they 
generally travelled at right angles to our line of approach, though this may have been 
due to some accident in the lie of the ground. The Kirghiz catch them in traps set in 
their runs. A young one so caught was brought to me on July 27, 1896. Its horns 
and horn-cores were only slightly developed. 
“In the following year I travelled from Kozalinsk, on the Aral Sea, to Lake Balkhash, 
following the Shu River. In this journey we saw Saigas from time to time on the edge 
of the Bek Pak Dala, or Hungry Steppe, in April, but no large herds were seen. The 
Kirghiz spoke of them as common in the Bek Pak. Both this district and the Tschalkar 
Steppes, except for wells on the caravan-roads, are almost waterless after the snow has 
disappeared, so probably the Saiga can subsist without more water than the dew and its 
food-plants provide. 
“The Kirghiz name of the Saiga is ‘ Kiik, and the word Saiga is only known to them 
as Russian, in which language, however, the word is not really ‘ Saiga,’ but ‘ Saigak,’ ” 
As regards the range of the Saiga at the present time, Herr E. Biichner, 
Director of the Zoological Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of 
St. Petersburg, has kindly favoured us with the following particulars :— 
The Saiga is still met with, although very unfrequently, in the country of 
the Ural Cossacks between the Wolga and the Ural, and extends occasionally 
into the Government of Samara. Last of the river Ural its range extends 
over the Kirghiz Steppes and the steppe district of all West Siberia—Turgai, 
Akmolinsk, and Semipalatinsk. South of this the Saiga is also found in the 
steppes of Russian Turkestan and in the Dsungarian steppes of Western 
Mongolia, but not in Transcaspia. 
