the heavens also begin to smile. Unclouded the spring sky certainly is
not, rather it is covered with clouds of all sorts, even in the finest
weather with bedded clouds and wool-packs, which stretch more or less
thickly over the whole dome of heaven, and around the horizon appear
to touch the ground. When these clouds thicken the heavens darken,
and only here and there does the sunlight pierce the curtain and show
the steppes warmed by the first breath of spring, and flushed with
inconceivable wealth of colour.
But every day adds some new tint. There is less and less of the
yellowish tone which last year’s withered stalks give even in spring
to the steppes; the garment already so bright continues to gain in
freshness and brightness. After a few weeks, the steppe-land lies like
a gay carpet in which all tints show distinctly, from dark green to
bright yellow-green, the predominant gray-green of the wormwoods being
relieved by the deeper and brighter tones of more prominent herbs and
dwarf-shrubs. The dwarf-almond, which, alone or in association with the
pea-tree and the honeysuckle, covers broad stretches of low ground, is
now, along with its above-mentioned associates, in all its glory. Its
twigs are literally covered all over with blossom; the whole effect is
a shimmer of peach-red, in lively contrast to the green of the grass
and herbage, to the bloom of the pea-trees, and even to the delicate
rose-red or reddish-white of the woodbine. In suitable places the
woodbine forms quite a thicket, and, when in full bloom, seems to make
of all surrounding colour but a groundwork on which to display its own
brilliancy. Various, and to me unknown, shrubs and herbs give high and
low tones to the picture, and the leaves of others, which wither as
rapidly as they unfold, become spots of yellow-green and gold. Seen
from a distance, all the colours do indeed merge into an almost uniform
gray-green; but near at hand each colour tells, and one sees the
countless individual flowers which have now opened, sees them singly
everywhere, but also massed together in more favourable spots, where
they make the shades of the bushes glorious. Amid the infinite variety
of bulbous plants there are exquisite vetches; among many that are
unfamiliar there are old friends well known in our flower-gardens; more
and more does the feeling of enchantment grow on one, until at last it
seems as if one had wandered into an unending, uncared-for garden of
flowers.
With the spring and the flowers the animal life of the steppes appears
also to awaken. Even before the last traces of winter are gone, the
migratory birds, which fled in autumn, have returned, and when the
spring has begun in earnest the winter sleepers open the doors of the
burrows within which they have slumbered in death-like trance through
all the evil days. As the migratory birds rejoin the residents, so the
sleepers come forth and join those mammals which are either careless of
winter or know how to survive it at least awake. At the same time the
insects celebrate their Easter, hastening from their hidden shelters
or accomplishing the last phase of their metamorphosis; and now, too,
the newts and frogs, lizards and snakes leave their winter quarters to
enjoy in the spring sunshine the warmth indispensable to their activity
and full life, and to dream of the summer which will bring them an
apathetic happiness.
The steppe now becomes full of life. Not that the animal life is of
many types, but it is abundant and everywhere distributed. The same
forms are met with everywhere, and missed nowhere. There are here no
hosts of mammals comparable to the herds of antelopes on the steppes
of Central Africa, nor to the troops of zebras and quaggas[17] in the
South African karoo, nor to the immeasurable trains of buffaloes on
the North American prairies;[18] nor are the birds of the steppes so
numerous as those on the continental shores or on single islands, or
on the African steppes, or in equatorial forests. But both birds and
mammals enter into the composition of a steppe landscape; they help to
form and complete the peculiarity of this region; in short, the steppes
also have their characteristic fauna.
The places at which the animals chiefly congregate are the lakes and
pools, rivers and brooks. Before the existence of a lake is revealed
by the periodically or permanently flooded reed-forests surrounding
it, hundreds and thousands of marsh-birds and swimmers have told the
practised observer of the still invisible sheet of water. In manifoldly
varied flight, fishing-gulls, common gulls, and herring-gulls sweep
and glide over its surface; more rapidly and less steadily do the
terns pursue the chase over the reeds and the pools which these
inclose; in mid-air the screaming eagles circle; ducks, geese, and
swans fly from one part of the lake to another; kites hover over the
reeds; even sea-eagles and pelicans now and then show face. As to the
actual inhabitants of these lakes, as to the number of species and
individuals, one can only surmise until one has stationed oneself on
the banks, or penetrated into the thicket of reeds. In the salt-steppe,
as is readily intelligible, the animal life is sparser. With hasty
flight most of the water-birds pass over the inhospitable, salt-covered
shores, as they wend from lake to lake; only the black-headed gulls and
fishing-gulls are willing to rest for a time by the not wholly dry,
but shallow, briny basins; only the sheldrake fishes there in company
with the charming avocet, who seeks out just these very places, and,
living in pairs or small companies, spends his days stirring up the
salt water, swinging his delicate head with upturned bill from side to
side indefatigably. Of other birds I only saw a few, a yellow or white
wagtail, a lapwing, a plover; the rest seem to avoid the uninviting
desolateness of these brine pools, all the more that infinitely more
promising swamps and pools are to be found quite near them. About the
lake itself abundant food seems to be promised to all comers. Thus
not only do thousands of marsh and water birds settle on its surface,
but even the little songsters and passerine birds, unprovided for by
the dry steppes, come hither. Not the fishers alone, but other hungry
birds of prey find here their daily bread. The steppe-lakes cannot
indeed be compared with those of North Africa, where, during winter,
the feathered tribes of three-quarters of the globe have their great
rendezvous, nor with the equatorial water-basins, which are thronged
by hundreds of thousands of birds at every season, nor even with the
marsh-lands of the Danube, where, all through the summer, countless
children of the air find rest; in proportion to the extent of water
in the steppes the number of winged settlers may seem small, but the
bird-fauna is really very considerable, and the lakes of the steppes
have also a certain uniqueness in regard to the nesting-places chosen
by the birds.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Lake Scene and Water-fowl in an Asiatic
Steppe.]
Here every creature has its home among the reeds: the wolf and the
boar, the eagle and the wild-goose, the kite and the swan, the raven
and the mallard, the gadwall or teal, the thrush and the white-throat,
the reed-tit and the sparrow, the reed-bunting and the ortolan, the
willow wren and the blue-throated warbler, the lesser kestrel and
the red-footed falcon, the crane and the lapwing, the shrike and the
snipe, the starling, the yellow and white wagtails, the quail and the
kingfisher, the great white heron and the spoonbill, the cormorant and
the pelican. The reed-thickets afford home and shelter to all; they
take the place of woods in affording hiding and security; in their
retreats the secrets of love are told, and the joys of family life are
expressed, exuberant rejoicings are uttered, and the tenderest cares
are fulfilled; they are the cradles and the schools of the young.
Of the mammals which congregate among the reeds one usually sees only
the tracks, provided, of course, that one does not resort to forceful
measures and ransack the thicket with dogs. Of the flitting bird-life,
however, in its general features at least, the practised eye of the
naturalist may at any time obtain a lively picture.
When we leave the dry steppes and approach a lake, the
widely-distributed larks disappear, and their place is taken by the
plovers, whose plaintive cries fall mournfully on the ear. One of
them may be seen running by fits and starts along the ground, with
the characteristic industry of its race, stopping here and there to
pick up some minute booty, and then running off again as swiftly
as ever. Before we reach the reeds we see the black-headed gulls,
probably also the common gulls, and, in favourable circumstances,
even a great black-backed gull. The first fly far into the steppes
to seek out the grazing herds, and are equally decorative whether
they sweep gracefully over and around them in thick crowds, catching
in their flight the insects which the grazing beasts have disturbed,
or whether they run behind the herd like white pigeons seeking their
food in the fields. Near the reeds we also see one or other of the
wild-geese--a male who for a short time has left his mate sitting
upon the eggs, to graze, while it is still possible, on the grassy
patches near the reed-thicket. Soon, however, parental cares, in
which all ganders share, will recall him to the recesses of the
willows close by the lake, to the nook where the careful parents
have their gray-greenish-yellow goslings well hidden. Over all the
flooded shallows there is a more active life. On the margins of the
pools small littoral birds have their well-chosen fighting-grounds.
Fighting-ruffs,[19] now arrayed in their gayest dress, meet there in
combat; with depressed head each directs his beak like a couched lance
against the bright neck-collar which serves his foe for shield. The
combatants stand in most defiant attitudes, irresistibly amusing to us;
for a moment they look at one another with their sharp eyes and then
make a rush, each making a thrust, and at the same time receiving one
on his feathery shield. But none of the heroes is in any way injured,
and none allows the duelling to interfere with less exciting business;
for if, during the onslaught, one see a fly just settling on a stem, he
does not allow it to escape him, and his opponent is equally attentive
to the swimming beetle darting about on the surface of a small pool;
hastily they run, one here and the other there, seize the booty which
they spied, and return refreshed to the fray. Meantime, however,
other combatants have taken the field, and the fight seems as if it
would never have an end. But suddenly a marsh-harrier comes swooping
along, and the heroes hastily quit the field; they rise together in
close-packed flight, and hurry to another pond, there to repeat the
same old game. The dreaded harrier is the terror of all the other
birds of the lake. At his approach the weaker ducks rise noisily,
and, a moment later, their stronger relatives, more disturbed by the
ducks than by the bird of prey, rise impetuously, and with whizzing
beating of wings, circle several times over the lake and sink again
in detachments. With trilling call the redshanks also rise, and with
them the snipe, whose cry, though tuneless, is audible from afar. The
robber sweeps past all too near, but both redshank and snipe forget
his menace as soon as they reach a safe height; they seem to feel only
the golden spring-tide and the joy of love which now dominates them.
For the redshank sinks suddenly to the water far beneath, flutters,
and hovers with his wings hanging downwards and forwards, rises again
with insistent calls and sinks once more, until a response from his
mate near by invites him to cease from his love-play and to hasten
to her. So is it also with the snipe, who, after he has ended his
zigzag flight, and ascended to twice the height of a tower, lets
himself fall suddenly. In the precipitous descent he broadens out
his tail, and opposes the flexible, narrow, pointed lateral feathers
to the resisting air, thus giving rise to that bleating noise to
which he owes his quaint name of sky-goat.[20] Only a pair of the
exceedingly long-legged black-winged stilts, which were pursuing their
business in apparently aristocratic isolation from the throng, have
remained undisturbed by the marsh-harrier; perhaps they saw the bold
black-headed gulls hastening to drive off the disturber of the peace.
Moreover, a Montagu’s harrier and a steppe-harrier have united their
strength against the marsh-harrier, whom they hate with a bitterness
proportionate to his near relationship. Without hesitation the robber
makes for the open country, and next minute there is the wonted
whistling and warbling, scolding and cackling over the water. Already
there is a fresh arrival of visitors, drawn by that curiosity common to
all social birds, and also, of course, by the rich table which these
lakes afford.
When at length we reach the thicket of reeds the smaller birds become
more conspicuous, the larger forms being more effectively concealed.
The crane, which breeds on the most inaccessible spots, the great
white heron, which fishes on the inner margin of the thicket, the
spoonbill, which forages for food on the shallowest stretches among the
reeds, all these keep themselves as far as possible in concealment,
and of the presence of the bittern in the very heart of the reeds we
are aware only by his muffled booming. On the other hand, all the
small birds to which I have referred expose themselves to view almost
without any wariness, singing and exulting in their loudest notes. The
yellow wagtails run about confidently on the meadow-like plots of grass
around the outer margin of the thicket; that marvel of prettiness, the
bearded titmouse, climbs fearlessly up and down on the reeds, whose
tops are graced here by a redbreast and there by a gray shrike. From
all sides the cheerful, though but slightly melodious song of the
sedge-warblers strikes the ear, and we listen with pleasure to the lay
of the black-throated thrush, to the lovely singing of the blue-throat,
the wood-wren, and the icterine warbler, and to the call of the cuckoo.
On the open pools among the reeds there is sure to be a pair of coots
swimming with their young brood, and where the water is deeper there
is perchance an eared grebe among the various kinds of ducks. When
it draws to evening the red-footed falcon, the lesser kestrel, the
starlings and the rose-starlings also seek the thicket for the night,
and of chattering and fussing there is no end. Even the spotted eagle,
the raven, and the hooded-crow appear as guests for the night, and, on
the inner margins at least, the cormorant and the pelican rest from
their fishing.
Finally, over the surface of the lake the gulls fly and hover, the
terns dart hither and thither, the ernes and ospreys pursue their prey,
and, where the water is not too deep, the pelicans and swans vie in
their fishing industry with the greedy cormorants and grebes.
The beds of streams fringed with trees and bushes are hardly less rich
in life. The trees bear the nests of large and small birds of prey, and
serve also for their perches. From their tops may be heard the resonant
call of the golden oriole, the song of the thrush, the laughter of the
woodpecker, and the cooing of the ring-dove and stock-dove; while from
the thick undergrowth the glorious song of the nightingale is poured
forth with such clearness and power, that even the fastidious ear of
the critic listens in rapture to the rare music. On the surface of the
stream many different kinds of water-birds swim about as on the lake;
among the bushes on the banks there is the same gay company that we saw
among the reeds; the lesser white-throat chatters, the white-throat
and the barred warbler sing their familiar songs.
When we traverse the dry stretches of the steppes we see another
aspect of animal life. Again it is the bird-life which first claims
attention. At least six, and perhaps eight species of larks inhabit the
steppes, and give life to even the dreariest regions. Uninterruptedly
does their song fall on the traveller’s ear; from the ground and from
the tops of the small bushes it rises; from morning to evening the
rich melody is poured forth from the sky. It seems to be only one song
which one hears, for the polyphonous calandra lark takes the strophes
of our sky-lark and of the white-winged lark and combines them with
its own, nor despises certain notes of the black lark, the red lark,
and the short-toed lark, but blends all the single songs with its own,
yet without drowning the song of its relatives, no matter how loudly
it may pour forth its own and its borrowed melodies. When, in spring,
we listen enraptured to our own sky-larks in the meadows, and note
how one sweet singer starts up after another in untiring sequence,
heralding the spring with inspired and inspiring song, we hardly fancy
that all that we can hear at home is surpassed a hundredfold on the
steppes. Yet so it is, for here is the true home of the larks; one
pair close beside another, one species and then another, or different
kinds living together, and in such numbers that the broad steppes seem
to have scarce room enough to hold them all. But the larks are not the
only inhabitants of these regions. For proportionately numerous are
the lark’s worst enemies, full of menace to the dearly loved young
brood--the harriers, characteristic birds of the steppes. Whatever
region we visit we are sure to see one or another of these birds of
prey, in the north Montagu’s harrier, in the south the steppe-harrier,
hurrying over his province, sweeping along near the ground in wavy,
vacillating flight. Not unfrequently, over a broad hollow, four, six,
eight or more may be seen at once absorbed in the chase. Even more
abundant, but not quite so widely distributed, are two other children
of the steppes, almost identical in nature and habits, and vieing with
one another in beauty, grace of form, and vigour of movement,--the
lesser kestrel and the red-footed falcon. Wherever there is a
perching-place for these charming creatures, where a telegraph-line
traverses the country, or where a rocky hillock rises from the plain,
there they are sure to be seen. As good-natured as they are gregarious,
unenvious of each other’s gain, though they pursue the same booty,
these falcons wage indefatigable war against insects of all sorts,
from the voracious grasshopper to the small beetle. There they sit,
resting and digesting, yet keeping a sharp look-out meanwhile; as soon
as they spy booty they rise, and after an easy and dexterous flight
begin to glide, then, stopping, they hover, with scarce perceptible
vibrations, right over one spot, until, from the height, they are able
to fasten their eyes surely on their prey. This done, they precipitate
themselves like a falling stone, seize, if they are fortunate, the
luckless insect, tear it and devour it as they fly, and, again swinging
themselves aloft, proceed as before. Not unfrequently ten or twelve of
both species may be seen hunting over the same spot, and their animated
behaviour cannot fail to attract and fascinate the observer’s gaze.
Every day and all day one comes across them, for hours at a time one
may watch them, and always there is a fresh charm in studying their
play; they are as characteristic parts of the steppe picture as the
salt lake, the tulip or the lily, as the dwarf shrub, the tschi-grass,
or the white wool-packs in the heavens. Characteristic also is the
rose-starling, beautifully coloured representative of the familiar
frequenter of our houses and gardens. He is the eager and successful
enemy of the greedy grasshopper, the truest friend of the grazing
herds, the untiring guardian of the crops and thus man’s sworn ally,
an almost sacred bird in the eyes of those who inhabit the steppes.
Notable also is the sand-grouse, a connecting link between fowl and
pigeon,[21] which, with other members of its family, is especially at
home in the desert. Not less noteworthy are the great bustard, its
handsomer relative the ruffed bustard, and the little bustard. The
last-named is of special interest to us, because a few years ago it
wandered into Germany as far as Thuringia, where it now, as in the
steppe, adds a unique charm to the landscape as it discloses its full
beauty in whizzing flight. Other beautifully coloured, and indeed
really splendid birds inhabit the steppes--the lovely bee-eater and
roller, which live on the steep banks of the streams along with falcons
and pigeons, the bunting and the scarlet bullfinch, which shelter among
the tschi-grass and herbage, and many others. Even the swallows are
not absent from this region in which stable human dwellings are so
rare. That the sand-martin should make its burrows in all the steeper
banks of the lakes will not seem strange to the ornithologist, but it
is worthy of note that the swallow and martins are still in process of
transition from free-living to semi-domesticated birds, that they still
fix their nests to the cliffs, but leave these to establish themselves
wherever the Kirghiz rear a tomb, and that the martins seek hospitality
even in the tent or _yurt_.[22] They find it, too, when the Kirghiz is
able to settle long enough to allow the eggs to hatch and the young to
become fledged, in a nest fixed to the cupola ring of his hut.
But in these regions, whose bird-life I have been describing, there are
other animals. Apart from the troublesome mosquitoes, flies, gadflies,
wasps, and other such pests, there are only a few species of insects,
but most of these are very numerous and are distributed over the whole
of the wide area. The same is true of the reptiles; thus in the region
which we traversed we found only a few species of lizards and snakes.
Among the latter we noted especially two venomous species, our common
viper and the halys-viper; neither indeed occurred in multitudes like
the lizards, but both were none the less remarkably abundant. Several
times every day as we rode through the steppe would one and the other
of the Kirghiz who accompanied us bend from his horse with drawn knife,
and slash the head off one of these snakes. I remember, too, that, at a
little hill-town in the northern Altai, a place called “Schlangenberg”
[or Snakemount], we wished to know whether the place had a good right
to its name, and that the answer was almost embarrassingly convincing,
so abundant was the booty with which those whom we had sent in quest
soon returned. We had no longer any reason to doubt the truth of the
tale according to which the place owed its name to the fact that,
before the town was founded, the people collected thousands and
thousands of venomous snakes and burned them. Amphibians and small
mammals seem much rarer than reptiles; of the former we saw only a
species of toad, and of the latter, several mice, a souslik, two blind
mole-rats, and the dainty jerboa, popularly known as the jumping-mouse.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.--The Souslik (_Spermophilus citillus_). (⅓
natural size.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 15.--The Jerboa (_Alactaga jaculus_). (⅓ natural
size.)]