38 Analyses of Books. [January, 
It is scarcely needful to add that before Siberia can become a 
field of emigration for the people of these islands an event must 
have taken place which, according to our author, the Siberians 
eagerly desire. “ Some day, doubtless, this city (Irkutsk) will 
be a second New York, the capital of an Asiatic United States, 
a free Siberia from the Ural to the Pacific. Every Siberian im- 
bibes the notion of freedom with his mother’s milk. Though 
born in Russia, or the child of Russian parents, he repudiates 
his nationality, calls himself a Siberiak, and is proud of his 
country.” 
Differing from the “ Anglo-Saxon ” — whether of Britain or 
America — in a number of points, the Russian agrees with him in 
his propensity to sedt-forming. Mr. Seebohm had an opportunity 
of visiting the village of Toer-o-Kansk, the seat, or rather place 
of banishment, of one of the strangest of these sedls. It is 
described as a model village, “ without crime, where idleness and 
drunkenness were unknown. Yet the people did not look happy. 
There was no fire in their glance, no elasticity in their step ; there 
seemed to be no blood in their veins. It was the village of the 
Scopsee, a sedt whose religion has taken an ultra-ascetic form. 
All the men were castrated, and in all the women the milk-glands 
were extracted from the breasts. They ate no animal food except 
fish, and did not even allow themselves butter or milk. Spirits, 
wine, tea, and coffee were prohibited. Although the population 
of the village numbered under a score, yet there were two sedts 
of Scopsee among them ; one drank milk and the other did not.” 
We think it may safely be said that no such community could 
have arisen among a French, Spanish, Italian, German, or Scan- 
dinavian people. 
Passing to a subjedl which for us has a more special interest, 
we note the author’s remarks on the migration of birds. In his 
former work he gave some interesting observations made at 
Heligoland. He has since then carried on his investigations 
during an autumn and a spring in the South of France, and his 
conclusions have in consequence been somewhat modified. He 
says, in the work before us, “ The marked difference between 
migration at Heligoland and migration on the shores of the Bay 
of Biscay is, that in the former locality not a bird was to be seen 
in unfavourable weather, but that when the wind was propitious 
birds came over with a rush.” At the Bay of Biscay, on the 
contrary, “ a gentle stream of migration seemed always to be 
going on, in almost all weathers, from early morn till late at 
night.” Hence he infers that during a long land journey birds 
travel more slowly in unfavourable weather, and rest at night, 
but if they have to cross the sea they wait for suitable wind and 
weather. 
Our author retradls his former doubts concerning the great 
routes of migration. Excursions of a few miles inland “took 
him out of the range of migration.” On the west coast of 
