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FAUNA AND FLORA] to the bearing of the axes of the great mountain chains. A dry and warm wind comes down from the snowy Elburz to Gilan in December and January, and much resembles the fohn of the Alps (Dr Tholozan, “Sur les vents du Nord de la Perse et sur le foehn du Guilan,” Comptes rendus, Acad. d. Sciences, March 1882). Observations for temperature have been taken for many years at the stations of the Indo-European Telegraph and for a few years at the British consulate in Meshed, and the monthly and annual means shown in the following table have been derived from the indications of maximum and minimum thermometers in degrees Fahrenheit. Very few hygrometrical observations have been taken, and only those of the British residency at Bushire are more or less trustworthy, and have been regularly registered for a number of years. In inner Persia the air is exceptionally dry, and in many districts polished steel may be exposed in the open during a great part of the year without becoming tarnished. Along the shores of the Caspian, particularly in Gilan and Mazandaran, and of the Persian Gulf from the mouth of the Shatt el Arab down to Bander Abbasi, the air during a great part of the year contains much moisture—dry- and wet-bulb thermometers at times indicating the same temperature—and at nights there are heavy falls of dew. In Gilan and Mazandaran the air contains much moisture up to considerable elevations and as far as 30 to 40 m. away from the sea; but along the Persian Gulf, where vegetation is very scanty, stations only a few miles away from the coast and not more than 20 or 30 ft. above the sea-level have a comparatively dry climate.

Frequently when the temperature in the shade at Bushire is not more than 85° or 90°, and the great humidity of the air causes much bodily discomfort, life is almost pleasant 12 or 20 m. inland with a temperature of over 100°.

Fauna.—Mr W. T. Blanford has described with great care and minuteness the zoology of Persia. In company with Major St John, R.E., he made a large collection of the vertebrate fauna in a journey from Gwetter to Teherān in 1872. Having added to this a previous collection made by the same officer with the assistance of a native from Calcutta, he had before him the principal materials for his work. Before commencing his analysis he adverted to his predecessors in the same field, i.e. Gmelin (whose travels were published in 1774–1784), Olivier (1807), Pallas (1811), Ménétries (1832), Belanger (1834), Eichwald (1834–1841), Aucher Éloy (1851), Loftus, Count Keyserling, Kokschy, Chesney, the Hon. C. Murray, De Filippi (1865), Hume (1873), and Professor Strauch of St Petersburg. All of these had, more or less, contributed something to the knowledge of the subject, whether as writers or as collectors, or in both capacities, and to all the due meed of credit was assigned. Blanford divided Persia into five zoological provinces: (1) the Persian plateau, or from the Kopet Dagh southwards to nearly 28° N. lat., including all Khorasan to the Perso-Afghan border, its western limit being indicated by a long line to the north-west from near Shiraz, taking in the whole upper country to the Russian frontier and the Elburz; (2) the provinces south and south-west of the Caspian; (3) a narrow strip of wooded country south-west of the Zagros range, from the Diyala River in Turkey in Asia to Shiraz; (4) the Persian side of the Shatt-el-Arab, and Aralictan, east of the Tigris; and (5) the shores of the Persian Gulf and Baluchistan. The fauna of the Persian plateau he described as “Palaearctic, with a great prevalence of desert forms; or, perhaps more correctly, as being of the desert type with Palaearctic species in the more fertile regions.” In the Caspian provinces he found the fauna, on the whole, Palaearctic also, “most of the animals being identical with those of south-eastern Europe.” But some were essentially indigenous, and he observed “a singular character given to the fauna by the presence of certain Eastern forms, unknown in other parts of Persia, such as the tiger, a remarkable deer of the Indo-Malayan group, allied to Cervus axis, and a pit viper (Halys).” Including the oak-forests of Shiraz with the wooded slopes of the Zagros, he found in his third division that, however little known was the tract, it appeared to contain, like the second, “a Palaearctic fauna with a few peculiar species.” As to Persian Mesopotamia, he considered its fauna to belong to the same Palaearctic region as Syria, but could scarcely speak with confidence on its characteristic forms. The fifth and last division, Baluchistan and the shores of the Persian Gulf, presented, however, in the animals common to the Persian highland “for the most part desert types, whilst the characteristic Palaearctic species almost entirely disappear, their place being taken by Indian or Indo-African forms.” The Persian Gulf Arab, though not equal to the pure Arabian, is a very serviceable animal, and has always a value in the Indian market. Among others the wandering Turkish tribes in Fars have the credit of possessing good steeds. The Turkoman horse of Khorasan and the Atak is a large, bony and clumsy-looking quadruped, with marvellous power and endurance. Colonel C. E. Stewart stated that the Khorasan camel is celebrated for its size and strength, that it has very long hair, and bears cold and exposure far better than the ordinary Arabian or Persian camel, and that, while the ordinary Persian camel only carries a load of some 320 ℔ and an Indian camel one of some 400 ℔, the Khorasan camel will carry from 600 to 700 ℔. The best animals, he notes, are a cross between the Bactrian or two-humped and the Arabian or one-humped camel. Sheep, goats, dogs and cats are good of their kind; but not all the last are the beautiful creatures which, bearing the name of the