Читать книгу The Desert World - Arthur Mangin - Страница 14

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BESIDES those species of which we have just spoken, and which man has subjugated to his service, the Steppes nourish a host of other animals which seem for ever destined to a savage life. Some are spread through the entire zone of the Steppes, and include representatives of the genera or species belonging to the temperate latitudes of Europe. But most of them are circumscribed in more or less limited habitats, out of which they would not meet with the conditions of climate or provision that are essential to their existence.

The mammalia which are found in the plains of Eastern Europe and Central Asia belong principally to the orders of Ruminants,[27] Rodents, and Carnaria.

Cuvier divides the ruminants into two great sections: one comprising the ruminants without horns (genera, camel, lama, and chevrotain); and the other, those with horns. The latter he again divides into ruminants with decaying or wooden horns (these are the cervidæ of the new nomenclature), ruminants with membraneous horns (as the giraffes), and ruminants with hollow horns (oxen, goats, antelopes, sheep).

The Eland (Antilope oreas).

The section of Ruminants without horns is represented in the Steppes by the camel. Of the three groups of horned ruminants, one only is wanting in this region of the Old Continent—namely, that of the ruminants with membranous horns; but we meet there with varieties of all the species included among the cervidæ, except the reindeer, which is confined to the glacial countries of both continents. The common European stag is found on this side of the Oural, in the Steppes bordering on the forests, where he prefers to seek an asylum. The ahu, or roebuck of Tartary, inhabits the valleys and plains which stretch to the north of the Himalaya and along the chain of the Thian-Chan. Deer wander in troops, or in isolated couples, in all the temperate and fertile portions of the zone of the Steppes, and the eland is spread over all Asia between the 45th and 41st degree of latitude. The latter is the largest of all the cervidæ. It ordinarily attains, and sometimes exceeds, the stature of the horse. His antlers, spread out perpendicularly to the axis of his head, take at first a nearly horizontal direction, then spring upwards in an abrupt curve. At their extremity they terminate in a broad palm, set with sharp snags around its outer edge. Their weight, for adults, averages from fifty-five to sixty-five pounds. The eland has a short robust neck, which is necessary to enable him to support the burden of his branching honours; but which, joined to the projection of his shoulders, and the disproportionate length of his fore-legs, gives him a very ungraceful aspect. Nor can he browse the herbage without making a great digression or falling on his knees. The male, moreover, under the throat has a sort of goître, or swelling, garnished with a rude pointed beard. The female wears a beard, but has no goître. The neck is surmounted with a short, stiff, blackish mane. The rest of the hair is of a pronounced gray.

The eland inhabits the marshy plains and banks of rivers; he dreads the heat, and to escape it will often remain during the long summer days plunged up to his neck in the cool waters. He lives with his comrades in tolerably numerous herds. The first birth of the female is only one; afterwards she produces two at a time. Frequently the eland attains a prodigious stature. An individual killed in the Altaï measured four feet and a half in height to the shoulder, and four feet and a third in length. His flesh is said to be light and nourishing; his hide excellent for making shoulder-belts; and his antlers are converted to the same uses as the horns of the stag.

Among the hollow-horned ruminants I may mention the Saiga, a kind of antelope which inhabits the Asiatic Steppes, and is met with even in Poland. In figure he takes the poetical elegance of the gazelle; his horns are of a clear yellow colour, and of a transparency which rivals that of tortoise-shell. His forehead is covered with transversal folds; he has no muzzle, properly speaking, but a kind of snout like that of a hog. It is said that he drinks through his nostrils. The saigas travel in herds of about two thousand each, of whom a certain number keep always some distance in advance, in the rear, and on the flanks of the main host, so as to watch over their security.

Another kind of gazelle, the Dseren, is peculiar to the Mongolian Deserts, and named by the inhabitants the yellow stag. His stature is little inferior to that of the deer. The female is without horns.

The Moufflon,[28] the original of our domestic sheep, sometimes strays into the plains of Central Asia, but prefers the solitude of the mountains. His general size is that of a small fallow deer, but though clothed with hair instead of wool, he bears a closer resemblance to the ram than to any other animal. In summer his hair is close, but in winter it becomes rough, wavy, and slightly curled. On the upper part of the body it is brown, but the under part and insides of the limbs are whitish. The hair is considerably longer under the throat, and about the neck and shoulders, than elsewhere.

We may refer, in this connection, to the Egagra, or wild goat, which Cuvier considers to have been the original stock of the numerous races of goats spread over various regions of the globe.

The Steppes nourish two species of Rodents: the Varying Hare (Lepus variabilis), so called because he changes from tawny gray in summer to white in winter; and a gray squirrel, which is probably only a variety of our common European squirrel. He is not a climber and a “haunter of the woods,” like his congener. He abounds in the Mongolian Steppes, where he lives in holes excavated under the earth, like the rats and rabbits. He is, however, much more ingenious than the other troglodyte-rodents; he shelters the entrance to his abode under a domed roof, skilfully constructed of dry herbs woven together, and covered with clay. These works closely resemble the mounds upheaved by moles.

The Carnaria of the Felidæ, or feline family, are wanting, or nearly so, in the immense zone which we are considering. Except a species of lynx, the Chilason or Chulon, whose existence has been recognized in the north of Tartary; and a few tigers which adventure into Mongolia, we may say that the Asiatic Steppes, and, therefore, also those of Europe, are exempt from these inconvenient guests. The most dangerous, and almost the only enemy which man and the herbivora have reason to dread, is the Wolf. This animal, now very rare in Western Europe, where his race will soon disappear, is still found in great numbers in the wild Lithuanian forests, in Russia, and all Northern and Central Asia. To him, as to other animals of the Canidæ, cold appears more favourable than heat, and it is in countries where the average temperature seldom rises high he attains his greatest dimensions. In Lithuania wolves are often met with which measure three feet and a half in length, without the tail. Those of Northern Asia are also of a great size and nerve, of terrible strength and audacity; they have been seen to pounce on a sheep, and carry it off at full speed. They intrude in quest of victims into the towns, the villages, and the encampments; combat to the last with their enemies; and when vanquished die without a groan. Generally they lurk in the woods and forests; but hunger, according to the proverb, drives them forth from their lairs. Then they assemble in vast hordes; they pursue, they assail, they defend, with ingenious tactic, skilfully availing themselves of the disposition and accidents of the ground. Their manœuvres vary according to the nature of the game or the enemy. In general, if a man preserve an upright bearing and a bold countenance, they will not attack him; they follow him stealthily, however, prepared to pounce upon him if, unhappily, he should stumble or falter. But the wolves of Tartary, far from sharing in this deference towards the lord of creation, display a singular bitterness against him. “It is remarked,” says the Jesuit missionary Huc, “that the Mongolian wolves attack man more willingly than any animals; one sees them sometimes galloping through innumerable flocks of sheep, without inflicting any injury, in order to dash upon the shepherd. In the neighbourhood of the Great Wall they frequently descend upon the Tartar-Chinese villages, enter the farms, turn aside with contempt from the domestic animals which they encounter, and penetrate even into the interior of the houses to select their victims, seizing them invariably by the throat and strangling them. Not a village in Tartary but has every year to deplore some calamity of this kind. One might say that the wolves of this country sought specially to avenge themselves on men for the blood-thirsty war the Tartars wage against them.” And it is true that in their pursuit of these animals the inhabitants of the Steppes display not only an ardour which would be legitimate, but a fierce and uncontrollable cruelty.

Capture of a Wolf by a Kirghiz Horseman.

“They pursue them everywhere à outrance,” remarks M. Huc; “they regard them as their chief enemy, on account of the terrible losses they inflict upon their flocks. The news that a wolf has made his appearance in the neighbourhood is for everybody a signal to ‘mount and ride away.’ And as each cavalier has always two or three saddled horses in waiting near his tent, the plain is speedily covered, as if by enchantment, with a cloud of eager horsemen. Their weapon is a long rod.[29] Thus, in whatever direction the wolf may seek to escape, he encounters a band of determined adversaries, whose cry, as they precipitate themselves upon their traditional foe, is ‘No quarter!’ There are no mountain-sides so rugged or so difficult, that the nimble horses of the Tartars cannot pursue him thither. The cavalier who finally overtakes the beast, flings a lasso round his neck as he passes at full gallop, and drags him in his rapid track to the nearest tent. There they firmly bind up his muzzle, that they may proceed to torture him with impunity, closing up the tragic scene by flaying him alive, and then setting him free. In the summer the miserable animal will live in this condition for several days; but in winter, exposed without his furry coat to the rigour of the season, he dies almost immediately, frozen to death.”[30]

It is generally considered that the wolf is an animal as cowardly as he is fierce, because he flies before man when man does not retreat before him, and because he kills unoffending animals. But we forget that man acts in a precisely similar manner. Numerous experiments, and especially those of Cuvier, have clearly proved that the wolf is fully capable of being domesticated, is very sensible of kindly treatment, and will as readily grow familiar with, and attached to, his master, as the best of dogs. We must, therefore, refer his ferocity to the instinct of self-preservation and of a vengeance too frequently excited; just as at the Cape of Good Hope, the unfortunate Bosjesmen, formerly treated like beasts by the Dutch colonists, though naturally of a peaceable disposition, became active and cruel aggressors, and daring assailants, against the enemies who had exhausted their patience.

Two other wild beasts of the dog genus, the Korsak and the Karogun, are eagerly hunted by the Tartars, especially by the Kirghiz. But the chase, in this instance, is carried on for industrial purposes. The fur of these animals is very valuable, and the Kirghiz hunters carry thousands every year to the great market of Orenburg. The korsak is a species of fox. In colour he closely resembles the jackal; but he has a long tail, with a black tuft at the tip, and on each side of the head a brown stripe extends from the eye to the muzzle. He ranges over all the Steppes of Tartary, and lives in burrows like the foxes. The natives pretend that he never drinks. He is a very handsome animal, and when, towards the close of the sixteenth century, several individuals were brought to Europe, he became quite the fashion. All the great ladies of the court were desirous of possessing one, which they tended in their chambers, and when promenading in the parks, often led about like a spaniel. The mania was of brief duration, but it clearly showed how easily the animal could be tamed and reared.

Buffon has confounded the karogun with the isatis or polar fox, and other animals with the korsak. He is equally distinct from the one as from the other, and the Kirghiz never make a mistake, though they hunt for both in the same districts. His skin is of an ashen gray on the back, and a pale yellow under the belly. His fur is not less precious than that of the korsak.

The wild Ornithology of the Steppes comprises some migratory palmipedes, a few gallinaceæ, and some predatory birds of the falcon family. Gulls, wild ducks, herons, curlews, and especially pelicans, people the shores of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the Caspian, with the banks of the rivers that flow into them, and the neighbouring pools. The Cossack and Kalmük chiefs, who now ardently cherish the love of falconry that was so marked a trait in the character of the mediæval nobles, hunt these birds with much enthusiasm, save, indeed, the pelican, whose flesh is not edible.

The herons form, in the order Grallatores and the tribe Cultirostres (knife-like beak), a family (Ardeidæ) composed of numerous species, several of which inhabit or frequent the marshes, lakes, and streams of the region of the Steppes.

“O’er yonder lake the while,

What bird about that wooded isle,

With pendant feet and pinions slow,

Is seen his ponderous length to row?

’Tis the tall heron’s awkward flight,

His crest of black, and neck of white,

Far sunk his gray-blue wings between,

And giant legs of murky green.”[31]

The most remarkable species is the great white heron (Ardea alba), or yellow-billed white egret, clothed in plumage of snowy white, with a long yellow bill, long lank limbs, and black feet; length about forty inches. On the nape and the croup his feathers are long and flexible, wavy, and with tapering ends; they are eagerly sought after for purposes of adornment. We may also mention the great bittern, the “bird of desolation” (Botauris stellaris)—which the French expressively name eau-mère, or “water-mother,” and which derives its zoological appellation from the Latin words bos and taureau, in allusion to the booming, bellowing sound of his hoarse voice. His plumage is of a pale yellow, marked with brown and nest-coloured zig-zag patches and shades. From the fulness of the feathers about his neck, he presents a very quaint, and even ridiculous appearance; but he is a bird of courage, and even of ferocity, striking with keen bill at the eyes of his antagonist. When attacked by dogs or other carnivora, he will throw himself upon the ground, and fight with both claws and bill unto the very last.

1. Great Bittern. 2. White Heron or Egret. 3. Curlew.

The curlew is allied to the ibis, differing from it only in secondary particulars, and notably in the form of his bill, which is thinner, and rounded in its whole length. His tail resembles the hen’s; the plumage of the head, neck, and fore part of the back, is light reddish-gray, streaked with dark-brown; the hind part of the back is white, with dark narrow longitudinal markings; the tail, breast, and abdomen are white, the former crossed with black bars, and the latter with dark marks and spots of a similar shape to those on the back. The female lays four excessively large pyriform eggs, about three inches long. The cry of the curlew is loud, wild, and plaintive. These birds assemble in numerous flocks, and live on the sea-coast and the marsh-border, feeding on worms and molluscs. At breeding-time they separate into pairs, and haunt the wild hills and dreary moorlands,—