ifauna, of
course, becomes poorer; nevertheless the woods of the Steppe, and
still more the forests of the Ante-Steppe, give refuge to many
birds, even to the hazel-hen, the woodcock and the black-grouse.
The fauna of the thickets at the bottom of the river-valleys is
decidedly, rich and includes aquatic birds. The destruction of
the forests and the advance of wheat into the prairies are rapidly
impoverishing the Steppe fauna. The various species of rapacious
animals are disappearing, together with the colonies of marmots; the
insectivores are also becoming scarce in consequence of the destruction
of insects, while vermin, such as the suslik (_Spermophilus_),
become a real plague, as also the destructive insects which have
been a scourge to agriculture during recent years. The absence of
_Coregoni_ is a characteristic feature of the fish-fauna of the
Steppes; the carp, on the contrary, reappears, and the rivers are
rich in sturgeons. On the Volga below Nijni Novgorod the sturgeon,
and others of the same family, as also a very great variety of
ganoids and _Teleostei_, appear in such quantities that they give
occupation to nearly 100,000 people. The mouths of the Caspian
rivers are especially celebrated for their wealth of fish.

_SIBERIA_

_JEAN JACQUES ELISEE RECLUS_

Siberia is emphatically the "Land of the North." Its name has by
some etymologists been identified with "Severia," a term formerly
applied to various northern regions of European Russia. The city
of Sibir, which has given its name to the whole of North Asia,
was so called only by the Russians, its native name being Isker.
The Cossacks, coming from the south and centre of Russia, may have
naturally regarded as pre-eminently the "Northern Land" those cold
regions of the Ob basin lying beyond the snowy mountains which
form the "girdle of the world."

Long before the conquest of Sibir by the Cossacks, this region was
known to the Arab traders and missionaries. The Tatars of Sibir were
Mahommedans and this town was the centre of the great fur trade. The
Russians themselves had constant relations with the inhabitants of
the Asiatic slopes of the Urals, and the Novgorodians were acquainted
with the regions stretching "beyond the portages." Early in the
Sixteenth Century the Moscow Tsars, heirs of the Novgorod power,
called themselves lords of Obdoria and Kondina; that is of all the
Lower Ob basin between the Konda and the Irtish confluence, and the
s