roe-deer, which differs from ours in its larger growth and by the
high antlers with weakly developed burrs. Its specific independence,
however, is still a subject of controversy among taxonomists. In
Siberia it prefers the stretches of woodland which have begun to
recover from the effects of a conflagration, and in which the pichta
fir is abundant. It also frequents the fringes of the forest and
small woods, and ascends the mountains to considerable heights, not
unfrequently above the forest-line; it may likewise pass into the open
steppes, associating on the heights with the steinbock and wild sheep,
and on the plains with the antelope. According to the nature of the
country, it undertakes more or less regular migrations, even without
being forced to these by forest fires, and in its wanderings it will
traverse wide stretches and cross broad rivers without hesitation.
In certain circumstances it appears in regions in which it has not
been seen for years, and from these centres it makes excursions round
about. In its wanderings it usually keeps to definite roads, but is
now and then forced to follow narrow paths. The rocky and precipitous
river-banks of the larger streams compel it to make its way through a
few cross-valleys and gorges, and this necessity is often the animal’s
ruin, for the trapper rarely omits to stretch his leading-fence across
these runs, and to lay his pitfalls fatally. Wolf and lynx press upon
it at every season; Russians and native Siberians likewise. Like other
game it is hunted unsparingly; every circumstance is utilized and every
trick is tried to effect its capture. At the beginning of the thaw,
when cold nights have frozen the top layer of snow into a thin crust
of ice, the hunter sets off on horseback or on snow-shoes with a pack
of nimble dogs; he rouses the stag with his shouts and runs it down,
fatiguing it the sooner the harder the ice is, for, as the stag bounds,
the crust breaks under its slender hoofs, and its ankles are cut. In
spring, the hunters entice the doe by imitating the cry of the fawn,
and the buck is similarly allured in the leafy season by a skilful echo
of the doe’s call; in the intermediate season and later, both sexes are
inveigled by special dainties; in autumn a drive is organized, or the
migrating deer is pursued in boats as he swims across the streams,
and is killed in the water; in early winter he is shot from the swift
sledge. In fact the only method of capture which is not resorted to is
that of snaring, so common a practice with knavish hunters at home; but
in all probability the reason for this abstinence is simply that the
spring-bow is more effective.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--The Elk Hunter--A Successful Shot.]
The elk[34] exists under decidedly more favourable conditions, and
has a firmer footing in the struggle for existence. Its haunts and
habits, its strength and power of self-defence, secure it from many,
if not most pursuers. A forest animal in the full sense of the word,
as much at home in swamp and bog as in thicket or wood, overcoming
with equal ease all obstacles of forest and morass, assured by the
nature of its diet from the scarcity of winter, it escapes more
readily than any other beast of the chase from pursuit either by man
or by other dangerous enemies. The latter include wolves, lynxes,
bears, and gluttons; but it may be doubted whether all these beasts
of prey together very seriously affect the elk. For it is as strong
as it is courageous, it has in its sharp hoofs even more formidable
weapons than its antlers, and it knows right well how to use both of
them. It may fall victim to a bear who surprises and overcomes it;
but it undoubtedly hurls a single wolf to the ground, and may even be
victorious over a pack of these eternally hungry creatures. As to lynx
and glutton, the old story that these are able to leap on the elk’s
neck and sever the jugular vein does not seem to have been proved. Only
against human weapons are the elk’s resources ineffective. But its
pursuit in Siberian forests is a precarious undertaking, and is little
practised except by the natives. During summer the water-loving beast
is hardly to be got at; it spends the greater part of the season in the
marsh, browsing by night and resting by day among the high marsh-plants
in a place accessible only to itself. The juicy water-plants and their
roots suit it better than the sharp sedges, and it therefore browses
in the deeper parts of the bog, where it pulls the plants out of the
water, dipping its uncouth head in the muddy moisture as far as the
roots of its donkey-like ears. When it lifts its head it blows from
its nose and mouth the mud and moisture which necessarily entered its
nostrils as it grubbed, and this makes a loud snorting noise which
can be heard from afar. Experienced hunters have based a peculiar
trick of the chase on the elk’s method of feeding. They listen to the
usually watchful animal for several nights in succession, and mark
his whereabouts; thither in the daylight they quietly carry a light,
shallow-water boat; by night, guided by the snorting, they row with
muffled oars towards the browsing creature, whose scent and hearing
are dulled by his grubbing; at close range they send a bullet through
him. The clearness of the northern summer night facilitates operations,
though it renders close approach more difficult; yet the sport is all
the more exciting, and by eager lovers of the chase it is pursued
passionately, and usually with success. On the advent of frost the elk
leaves the swamps, for the brittle coat of ice hinders his movements,
and hies to the drier parts of the forest until the thickly falling
snow forces him to wander in search of specially favourable localities.
At this season the chase of the elk, with well-trained and, above
all, silent dogs, is preferred to all other sport. In its wanderings
the elk does not avoid human settlements, and betraying itself by its
unmistakable footprints, soon has the huntsman on its heels. Now is
the time to send the dogs after it. Their duty is to keep the creature
continually agog, but never to chase it. They must never attack it
in the rear, nor ever come too near it, but must rather bark at it
continually, and keep its attention unceasingly engrossed. When the
elk sees itself thus threatened in front it stops after a short trot,
looks angrily at the dogs, seems trying to make up its mind to attack
them, but only in rare cases succeeds in carrying out the resolution
so slowly arrived at, and thus gives the sportsmen time to get within
easy range, and to take sure aim. If a small herd of elk is suddenly
surprised by the dogs and driven into a narrow defile, they may be so
nonplussed that several may fall before a well-handled rifle. But when
old experienced elks are pursued for some time during a heavy snowfall
they take the first trodden path which they come across, and trot along
it whether it lead to the recesses of the forest or to the township;
thus they are not unfrequently led quite close to inhabited houses, on
seeing which they diverge into the woods. A hard crust of snow is not
less dangerous to the elks than to the roe-deer; and then the spirited
and experienced huntsmen pursue them even with boar-spears, speeding
along on snow-shoes, outrunning and fatiguing the impeded animals till
they can use the ancient weapons to good effect. The flesh is readily
eaten both by immigrants and natives, but it has no great market
value; the skin, on the other hand, finds ready sale at six to eight
roubles[35] a hide, and affords the professional huntsman sufficient
recompense for his trouble and exertions.
The wild reindeer belongs strictly to the tundra, but it also occurs
throughout the whole extent of the forest-zone. Along the eastern
slopes of the Urals it is frequent both in the depths of the forest and
on the mountain heights, and the huntsmen of these parts accordingly
speak with a certain emphasis of forest-reindeer and mountain-reindeer,
and seem inclined to attribute different characteristics to the two
kinds, though they cannot define their distinctive marks. The reindeer
is less shy of populated districts than any other deer, which perhaps
best explains the fact that every year among those living in freedom
individuals are captured with slit ears and brand-marks. These have
probably escaped from the herds of the Samoyedes and Ostiaks during
the breeding season, and have wandered southwards till they met a wild
stock to which they attached themselves. Once free from bondage, they
very rapidly assume all the habits of wild life. But neither these
escaped truants nor the wild forms are regarded by the forest-folk
as of much moment among the beasts of the chase. Reindeer are indeed
captured wherever, whenever, or however that may be possible; but apart
from a few specially keen hunters of Russian origin only the natives
pursue them with persistence and eagerness.
Excepting the Semites and the Russians, all sensible people include
hares among edible game. In consequence of this exception, the variable
hare of Western Siberia is hunted only by educated and unprejudiced
Siberians of Russian origin, and by the natives of the North, who are
uninfluenced by any laws of diet. Even the skin of the snowy hare,
since it loses its fur very readily, has little value in the eyes of
the huntsman, and perhaps for this reason is presented by the heathen
peoples as an offering to the gods. Yet in spite of the indifference
with which the forest-folk regard this rodent so highly prized by us,
the hare is nowhere plentiful. Many perish in the traps; the majority
are caught by wolves, foxes, and lynxes; and the severe winter, which
often impels them to long migrations, thins them sadly. The hare is
certainly not important among the beasts of the chase.
Among the non-edible furred beasts of the forest the first place may be
given to the wolf, since it is most bitterly hated and most generally
hunted. For although it is said that the direct injury which it does
to man is not very considerable, or at any rate not insufferable, he
misses no opportunity of destroying it. It is certain that in West
Siberia wolves only exceptionally appear in large packs, and that they
even more rarely venture to attack man, but it is equally certain that
they do much damage to domestic animals. This is very considerable when
we take into account the destruction caused by wolves among the herds
of the nomads on the steppes and the tundra. There is no possibility
of computing the numbers of wolves in the forest-zone. They are found
everywhere and yet nowhere; to-day they fall upon the herds of a
village, where there has been no trace of them for years, and to-morrow
they ravage the sheepfolds somewhere else; they leave certain districts
suddenly, and establish themselves in them again just as unexpectedly;
here they defy their persecutors, and there precautions against them
are almost superfluous.
Broad, much-used highways and settlements rich in meadows attract
them, for on the former they find the carcasses of horses, and by the
latter they find an easy booty in the herds which wander unhindered
by any herdsman, and often stray far into the woods. But they are not
absent from those parts of the forest which lie beyond the limits of
traffic. Sometimes in broad daylight they are seen singly or in small
packs prowling near the settlements; by night they not unfrequently
pass through villages or even towns. In a single night they destroy
dozens of sheep, attack horses and cattle also, and more rarely dogs
(for which in other countries they show a preference). The only animals
which they avoid are the courageous swine, for here and elsewhere these
at once show fight, and invariably get the best of it.
Like the Russians, the Siberians hold to the superstition that the
she-wolf suckling young carefully avoids ravaging in the neighbourhood
of her litter, but that if she be robbed of her whelps, she avenges
herself terribly, following the robber to his village home, and falling
with unbounded rage upon all his herds. For fear of this revenge,
every Siberian passes by any wolf-litter which he finds, and only now
and then does he dare to cut the Achilles tendon of the whelps, thus
laming them and keeping them near their birthplace until the time of
the autumn hunt. For, as they grow up, the mother’s love is supposed to
disappear, at least her thirst for revenge grows less, and the skins of
the young wolves caught in autumn reward the clever foresight of the
cunning peasant.
According to locality and opportunity, the methods employed in the
capture of the wolf vary greatly. Pitfalls, traps, strychnine, and the
spring-bows already described do good service; actual driving is seldom
successful. A favourite method is to pursue the wolf with sledges,
and to shoot him from the sledge. To attract the wolf within range an
ingenious device is resorted to. An old, steady, or worn-out horse
is yoked to a large sledge, in which four comrades--the driver, two
marksmen, and a fair-sized sucking-pig--take their places. The driver,
whose sole duty is to look after his horse, takes the front seat; the
marksmen sit behind, and the pig lies in a bag between their feet.
Towards evening the mixed company sets off along a well-beaten road
to a part of the forest where during the day fresh wolf-tracks were
seen. On to the track one of the hunters throws a bag stuffed with hay,
and fastened to the sledge by a long line; while this trails along,
the other hunter teases the young pig, and makes it squeal. Isegrim
hears the complaint, and probably thinking that it comes from a young
boar separated from its mother, draws near quietly and carefully,
that is, as far as possible hidden from the road. He perceives the
bundle trailing behind the sledge, supposes this to be the squealing
pig, and, after some consideration, determines to put an end to its
sufferings. With a great bound he leaps upon the course, and eagerly
rushes after the sledge. What does he care for the threatening forms
which it bears? Such he has often inspected close at hand, and robbed
before their very eyes. Nearer and nearer he comes, gaining on the now
quickened sledge; crueller tormenting makes the pig utter louder and
more clamant squeals; they are maddening to the robber; just another
bound, and--two rifles ring out, and the wolf rolls gasping in death.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.--A Siberian Method of Wolf-shooting.]
Equally artful is the circular trap much used in the Ural district.
At a short distance from the village a circular space about two yards
in diameter is enclosed with close-set deep-sunk stakes; around this
is formed a second similar circle at an interval of about a foot and
a half from the first. Two specially strong posts support a solid
deal door moving on firm hinges, furnished with a spring-catch, and
so arranged that it opens only inwards, pressure outwards causing
the spring-catch to shut. Both circles are roofed over, not thickly,
indeed, but firmly, and a trapdoor in the roof admits to the inner
circle. When it is perceived that the wolves are beginning to visit the
village by night, the trap is set by placing a live goat in the inner
enclosure and opening the door of the outer ring. The pitiful bleating
of the goat, frightened by being taken from his usual surroundings,
attracts Isegrim. He does not in the least like the look of the
strange enclosure, but the frantic behaviour of the goat, still more
terrified by the wolf’s appearance on the scene, makes him forget his
habitual caution, and he begins to try to get at the welcome booty.
Several times does he prowl round the outer fence, ever more quickly
and eagerly, twisting and snuffing, sometimes coming quite near, and
again retreating, till at last he discovers the only door by which it
is possible for him to get near the goat. His appetite gets the better
of his natural cunning. Still hesitating, but yet advancing, he pushes
his head and body through the narrow doorway. With despairing cries the
goat springs to the opposite side of the inner fence. Without further
consideration or hesitation the robber follows. The goat rushes round
in a circle, and the wolf does the same, with this difference, that he
has to move between the two rows of stakes. Then the projecting door
impedes his progress. But the victim is now so near, and apparently
so sure, that the wolf dashes furiously forwards, pressing the door
outwards; the spring-catch falls with a snap into its groove, and
the distrustful, cautious dupe is trapped--trapped without being
able to get a step nearer the tempting booty. Unable to turn round,
boiling over with rage, he runs and trots and jumps, ever forwards,
ever in a circle, hurrying without a pause on his endless circuit.
The intelligent goat soon appreciates the situation, and though still
crying and trembling, remains standing in the middle of the inner
circle. The wolf also begins to see the fruitlessness of his circling,
and tries to recover his freedom, tearing splinters a foot long out
of the stakes with his teeth, howling with rage and fear, but all in
vain. After a night of torment, the daylight appears--the wolf’s last
morning. The villagers begin to move about, and voices mingle with
the barking of dogs. Dark men, accompanied by noisy dogs, approach
the scene of the tragedy. Motionless, like a corpse, the wolf lies;
scarce a wink of his eyes betrays that there is still life in him. With
furious barking the dogs press round the outer fence, but he does not
move; with mocking welcome the men call to him, but he heeds not. But
neither dogs nor men are deceived by his shamming death. The former,
pressing between the stakes, try to get a grip of him; the latter slip
the much-used horse-noose or _arkan_ over his head. Once more the beast
springs up, once more he rages on his path of torture, howling he seeks
to terrify, gnashing his teeth he attempts defiance, but in vain--there
is no escape from the dread noose, and in a few minutes he is throttled.
The fox is everywhere attacked, hunted, killed, and devoured, or at
least hard pressed, by the wolf, and is therefore not abundant in
Siberia, but neither his hostile relative nor man have as yet been
able to exterminate him. In the eastern parts of the forest-zone he
sometimes undertakes long migrations, following the hares or the
grouse; in the west, observations on this point do not appear to be
recorded. They do not complain in Siberia of the damage he does,
nevertheless they hunt him eagerly, for his fur is prized by natives
and Russians alike, and is always dear. It fetches an especially high
price when it is of a certain much-appreciated colour. As a beast of
the chase, only the sable takes higher rank. For the sake of the fox
alone professional hunters undertake winter expeditions which often
take them as far into the heart of the forest as the sable-hunters are
wont to penetrate. Especially for it do the Ostiaks and Samoyedes set
their spring-bows, and they spare no trouble in their search for the
burrow where the young are hidden, not in order to kill them, but that
they may rear them carefully and tenderly till they become large and
strong, and gain, in their first or second winter, their beautiful fur.
For that the fosterers care more than for the life of their winsome
charges, and they give them over remorselessly to the fatal noose.
The Arctic fox may be included conditionally among the forest animals,
but it never actually penetrates into the forest. Sometimes, however,
in winter, in pursuit of hares and moor-fowl, it follows the course of
the large rivers beyond the southern limits of the tundra, its true
home.
The lynx, on the other hand, is a forest animal in the strictest sense
of the word. But in Siberia it only occurs singly, and is very rarely
captured. Its true home is in the thickest parts in the interior of
the forest, and these it probably never leaves except when scarcity
of food or the calls of love prompt it to wander to the outskirts.
Experienced hunters of the Eastern Ural say that the lynxes not only
live in the same locality as the bear, but that they remain in the
neighbourhood of the bear’s winter-quarters after he has gone to sleep.
They assert, moreover, that the preference the lynxes show for these
winter-quarters betrays the bears, since search has only to be made
where most lynx-tracks cross, and especially where there is a circular
track, for that always surrounds a bear’s sleeping-place. The lynx’s
habit of keeping to his old paths with almost anxious carefulness must
greatly facilitate the discovery of the bear’s quarters. Moreover, it
may be added that in Siberia the lynxes show themselves very fond of
fresh meat, and that they possibly seek the neighbourhood of a bear in
the hope of occasionally sharing his booty. For, although it may be
urged that the lynx is able enough on his own account to bring down big
game without any help from so doubtful a friend as the bear, and that
he hunts the reindeer and the roe, and may in a short time overpower
them, yet the fact remains that his booty chiefly consists of small
animals, such as hares, ground-squirrels, tree-squirrels, black-cock,
capercaillie, hazel-grouse, young birds, mice, and the like. Of this
there is no doubt, and it explains satisfactorily why the lynx is so
rare in the fringes of the forest which are accessible to man. As long
as squirrels and game birds abound in the interior of the forest, the
lynx has no temptation to stray from this unvisited wilderness; when
his prey migrates, he is forced to follow. How much he is feared by the
game birds one can discern from the fact that every wooing capercaillie
or black-cock is instantaneously dumb when a lynx lets himself be heard.
Both immigrants and natives hold the hunting of the lynx to be right
noble sport. This proud cat’s rarity, caution, agility, and powers of
defence raise the enthusiasm of every sportsman, and both skin and
flesh are of no small value. The former is preferably sent from West
Siberia to China, where it fetches a good price; the latter, when
roasted, is highly esteemed not only by the Mongolian peoples but also
by most of the Russian settlers. The lynx is but seldom captured in
the fall-traps, but he often renders them useless by walking along
the beam and stepping on the lever; he is but rarely a victim to the
spring-bow, and he usually leaps over the steel traps in his path. So
there is only the rifle left. Only in winter can he be hunted, when
the snow betrays his tracks and admits of the use of snow-shoes. The
courageous dogs, having sighted their game, drive it with difficulty to
a tree or bait it on the ground, but they often suffer cruelly, or may
even be killed. The hunter himself runs a risk of being attacked by a
furious lynx at bay.
The wild cat, which the lynx persecutes as pitilessly as the wolf does
the fox, is absent from the forest-zone of West Siberia, but now and
then the region is visited by the most perfect of all cats,--the tiger.
Two which were killed in 1838 and 1848 at Baesk and Schlangenberg
now stand stuffed in the museum of Barnaul; another, killed in the
beginning of the seventies, is preserved in the school museum at Omsk.
Towards the end of the sixties a tiger terrified the inhabitants of
the Tschelaba district (on the European boundary of the Ural) by
attacking, without provocation, a number of peasants, from whom it was
only frightened off when one of the men threw his red cap in its face.
In the steppe-mountains of Turkestan, and throughout the south of East
Siberia, the “king of beasts”, as the Daurs call the tiger, is found
everywhere and permanently in suitable localities, and from both sides
it may pass, oftener than can be proved, to the western forest-zone,
remaining perhaps for some time unobserved and retiring unnoticed. Yet
on the whole it occurs so rarely and irregularly that we cannot do more
than name it, without reckoning it among the beasts of this region.
It is far otherwise with the most precious of the furred beasts, the
various species of marten. Their decrease is more lamented than that
of all other beasts of the chase, but most of them are still regularly
caught, if not everywhere, at any rate in certain parts of the forest
region. Only the sable has in the last few decennia become really rare.
Old huntsmen of the middle Ural remember having caught sable every
winter in the vicinity of Tagilsk; nowadays, at this latitude of the
mountain-land, only an occasional stray specimen is to be met with.
A great forest fire in the central part of East Ural is said to have
driven off the highly-prized and much-hunted creature. We hear the same
story in the forest villages of the lower Ob, where the hunting of the
sable is still pursued, and yields, for instance, at the Yelisaroff
market, about a score of skins every winter.