Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/93

Rh FAUNA.] compose the forests, the soil of which is dry, and the extension of which is interrupted by green prairies. Viewed from a rising ground, the landscape presents a pleasing variety of corn-field and forest, while the horizon is broken by the bell-towers of numerous villages along the banks of the streams. Viewed as a whole, the flora of the forest region must be regarded as European-Siberian ; and, though certain species disappear towards the east, while new ones make their appearance, it maintains, on the whole, the same characters throughout from Poland to Kam- chatka. Thus the beech (Fagus sylvatica), a characteristic tree of western Europe, is unable to face the continental climate of Russia, and does not penetrate beyond Poland and the south- western provinces, reappearing again in the Crimea. The silver fir (picJita) does not extend over Russia, and the oak does not cross the Urals. On the other hand, several Asiatic species (Siberian pine, larch, cedar) grow freely in the north-east, while several shrubs and herbaceous plants, originally from the Asiatic steppes, have spread into the south-east. But all these do not greatly alter the general characters of the vegetation. The coniferous forests of the north contain, besides conifers, the birch (Bctula alba, B. pub- cscens, B. fruticosa, and B. verrucosa, which extend from the Petchora to the Caucasus), the aspen, two species of alder, the mountain-ash (Sorbus aucuparia), the wild cherry-tree, and three species of willow. South of 62 - 64 north latitude appears the lime-tree, which multiplies rapidly and, notwithstanding the rapidity with which it is being exterminated, constitutes entire forests in the east (central Volga, Ufa). Farther south the ash (Fraorinus excelsiw) and the oak make their appearance, the latter (Qucrcus pedunculaia) reaching in isolated groups and trees as far as to St Petersburg and South Finland (Q. Robur appears only in the south-west). The hornbeam is prevalent in the Ukraine, and the maple begins to appear in the south part of the coniferous region. In the forest region no fewer than 772 flowering species are found, of which 568 dicotyledons occur in the Archangel government (only 436 to the east of the White Sea, which is a botanical limit for many species). In central Russia the species become still more numerous, and, though the local floras cannot yet be considered complete, they number from 850 to 1050 species in the separate governments, and about 1600 in the best explored parts of the south-west. Corn is cultivated throughout this region. Its northern limits which are sure to advance still farther as the population increases almost reach the Arctic coast at the Varanger Fiord ; farther east they hardly extend to the north of Archangel, and the limit is still lower towards the Urals. The northern frontier of rye closely corre- sponds to that of barley. Wheat is cultivated in South Finland, but in western Russia it hardly passes 58 N. lat. Its true domains are the oak region and the Steppes. Fruit-trees are cultivated as far as 62 N. in Finland, and as far as 58 in the east. Apricots and walnuts flourish at Warsaw, but in Russia they do not extend beyond 50. Apples, pears, and cherries are grown throughout the oak region. The Region of the Steppes, which covers all southern Russia, may be subdivided into two zones an intermediate zone and that of the Steppes proper. The Ante-Steppe of the preceding region and the intermediate zone of the Steppes include those tracts where the West-European climate struggles with the Asiatic, and where a struggle is being carried on between the forest and the Steppe. It is comprised between the summer isotherms of 59 and 63, being bounded on the south by a line which runs through Ekaterinoslaff and Lugan. South of this line begin the Steppes proper, which extend to the sea and penetrate to the foot of Mount Caucasus. The Steppes proper are very fertile elevated plains, slightly undulated, and intersected by numerous ravines which are dry in summer. The undulations are scarcely apparent to the eye as it takes in a wide prospect under a blazing sun and with a deep-blue sky overhead. Not a tree is to be seen, the few woods and thickets being hidden in the depressions and deep valleys of the rivers. On the thick sheet of black earth by which the Steppe is covered a luxuriant vegetation develops in spring ; after the old grass has been burned a bright green covers immense stretches, but this rapidly disappears under the burning rays of the sun and the hot easterly winds. The colouring of the Steppe changes as if by magic, and only the silvery plumes of the kovyl (Stipa pennata) wave under the wind, giving the Steppe the aspect of a bright yellow sea. For days together the traveller sees no other vegetation ; even this, however, disappears as he nears the regions recently left dry from the Caspian, where salted clays covered with a few Salsolacese, or mere sands, take the place of the black-earth. Here begins the Aral-Caspian desert. The Steppe, however, is not so devoid of trees as at first sight appears. Innumerable clusters of wild cherries (Primus Chamtecerasus), wild apricots (Amygdalus nana), tchilizhnik (Caragana frutescens), and other deep-rooted shrubs grow in the depressions of the surface and on the slopes of the ravines, giving the Steppe that charm which manifests itself in the popular poetry. Unfortunately the spread of cultivation is fatal to these oases (they are often called " islands " by the inhabitants) ; the axe and the plough ruthlessly destroy them. 77 The vegetation of the poimy and zaimischas in the marshy bottoms of the ravines, and in the valleys of streams and rivers, is totally different. The moist soil gives free development to thickets of various willows (Salidness), bordered with dense walls of worm- wood and needle-bearing Composita, and interspersed with rich but not extensive prairies harbouring a great variety of herbaceous plants ; while in the deltas of the Black Sea rivers impenetrable masses of rush (Arundo Phragmites) shelter a forest fauna. But cultivation rapidly changes the physiognomy of the Steppe. The prairies are superseded by wheat-fields, and flocks of sheep destroy the true steppe-grass (Stipa pennata), which retires farther east. A great many species unknown in the forest region make their appearance in the Steppes. The Scotch pine still covers sandy spaces, and maple (Acer tatarica and A. campestre), the hornbeam, and the white and black poplar become quite common. The number of species of herbaceous plants rapidly increases, while beyond the Volga a variety of Asiatic species join the West-European flora. The Circum- Mediterranean Region is represented by a narrow strip of land on the south coast of the Crimea, where a climate similar to that of the Mediterranean coast has permitted the development of a flora closely resembling that of the valley of the Arno. Of course, human cultivation has not yet acclimatized there the same variety of plants as that imported into Italy since the Romans. It has even destroyed the rich forests which sixty years ago made deer-hunting possible at Khersones. The olive and the chestnut are rare; but the beach reappears, and the Pinus Pinaster recalls the Italian pines. At a few points, such as the Nikitsky garden and Alupka, where plants have been accli- matized by human agency, the Californian Wellingtonia, the Lebanpn cedar, many evergreen trees, the laurel, the cypress, and even the Anatolian palm (flham&rops cxcelsa) flourish. The grass vegetation is very rich, and, according to lists still incom- plete, no fewer than 1654 flowering plants are known. On the whole, the Crimean flora has little in common with that of the Caucasus, where only 244 Crimean species have as yet been found. 1 The fauna of European Russia does not very materially differ Fauna, from that of western Europe. In the forests not many animals which have disappeared from western Europe have held their ground ; while in the Urals only a few now Siberian, but formerly also European are met with. On the whole, Russia belongs to the same zoo-geographical region as central Europe and northern Asia, the same fauna extending in Siberia as far as the Yenisei and Lena. In south-eastern Russia, however, towards the Caspian, we find a notable admixture of Asiatic species, the deserts of that part of Russia belonging in reality rather to the Aral-Caspian depression than to Europe. For the zoo-geographer only three separate sub-regions appear on the East-European plains the tundras, including the Arctic islands, the forest region, especially the coniferous part of it, and the Ante-Steppe and Steppes of the black-earth region. The Ural mountains might be distinguished as a fourth sub-region, while the south coast of the Crimea and Caucasus, as well as the Caspian deserts, have their own individuality. As for the adjoining seas, the fauna of the Arctic Ocean off the Norwegian coast corresponds, in its western parts at least, to that of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream. The White Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the east of Svyatoi Nos belong to a separate zoological region connected with, and hardly separable from, that part of the Arctic Ocean which extends along the Siberian coast as far as to about the Lena. The Black Sea, of which the fauna was formerly little known but now appears to be very rich, belongs to the Medi- terranean region, slightly modified, while the Caspian partakes of the characteristic fauna inhabiting the lakes and seas of the Aral- Caspian depression. In the region of the tundras life has to contend with such un- favourable conditions that it cannot be abundant. Still, the rein- deer frequents it for its lichens, and on the drier slopes of the moraine deposits four species of lemming, hunted by the Canis lagopus, find quarters. Two species of the white partridge (Lagopus albus, L. alpinus), the lark, one Plectrophanes, two or three species of Sylvia, one Phylloscopus, and the Motacilla must be added. Numberless aquatic birds, however, visit it for breeding purposes. Ducks, divers, geese, gulls, all the Russian species of snipes and sandpipers (Limicula, Tringa), &c., cover the marshes of the tundras, or the crags of the Lapland coast. The forest region, and especially its coniferous portion, though it has lost some of its representatives within historic times, is still rich. The reindeer, rapidly disappearing, is now met with only in Olonetz and Vologda ; the Cervus pygargus is found everywhere, and reaches Novgorod. The weasel, the fox, and the hare are exceed- 1 Bibliography. Beketoff, Appendix to Russian translation of Griesebach and Reclus's Geogr. Univ.; Ledebour, Flora Rossica; Trautvetter, Rossis: Arcticte Plantx, 1880; Id., Florx Rossicx Fontes; for flora of the tundras, Beketoff s " Flora of Archangel," in Mem. Soc. Natur. at St Petersburg university, xv., 1884 ; Regel, Flora Rossica, 1884 ; floras of separate governments in several scientific periodicals; Brown, Forestry in the Mining Districts of the Urals, 1885; Reports by Commissioners of Woods and Forests in Russia, 1884 ; Forestry Almanac (Lyesnoi Kalendar) for 1885.