leads to the Bashkaus river running into Lake Teletskoi. The whole view was very remarkable, and the dry character of the steppe close to the marshy larch forest was very striking. There were few plants actually in the plain, but many interesting Alpine plants on the hills round, and on the islands which the river formed. I saw a flock of Jackdaws, not at all like those which we saw north of Ongodai, and which were little paler on the neck than English ones. The old ones had the nape, breast and flanks quite white; but the young ones looked the same as English jackdaws. At the end of the steppe the valley contracted and the hills on each side were very steep, and looked like volcanic rocks, red and yellow in tint. Twenty-seven versts from Kurai we came to a log house for travellers and lunched there. In a few miles the Tchuja steppe came into view surrounded by mountains, most of which are covered with snow on their tops. The lower slopes are bare and gravelly, and the only wood was a few larches near the water. There are a good many ponds and overflows of the river, and abundant growth of willows in the flat near water. The plain seemed about forty miles long by fifteen wide, and there were very few yourts in the parts we saw. The grazing seemed very thin, but there were lots of horses and some sheep. I saw very few birds, some small pink finches, larks, and one or two eagles and kites, After a long ride of thirty-five versts we got to Kuch Agach, where there were a small church and custom house, and a few Russians who trade in wool; but the whole place was very poor and miserable, and everything round about was eaten off by horses.
On June 24th, having arranged for hunters and guides, we got off for the hills south of the Tchuja steppe with a party of ten Altai Tartars and twenty-three horses. The first three or four miles out of Kuch Agach was among lakes and branches of the river. On most of these lakes there were waterfowl, principally Ruddy Sheldrake, followed by their young, and Scoters, a very unlikely bird to be found here at such an immense distance from the sea. It turned out to be a Scoter which had hitherto only been found in the North Pacific, and I gave it to the Petrograd Museum. A few Eagles hang about these streams, and Kites were still, as they had been all through the Altai, the commonest bird of prey except Kestrels.
We passed a Mongol marmot hunter’s camp by the way. He was a wild¬ looking fellow, dressed in sheepskin, and seemed to be living entirely on marmot’s flesh, of which he had a large potful boiling on a fire of willow twigs. He let me take one of his best marmots to skin, but owing to lack of speech I could not find out much about the way he caught them; though I saw several places where deep excavations had been made to dig them out.
We spent several days in this district, hunting and collecting. One day I climbed up to the open flat top of a mountain, very much like a Norwegian fjeld at 4,000 feet, but with flowering plants as high as I went, perhaps 9,000 feet, Sax. oppositifolia being highest and most abundant, and very few mosses or lichens. From here I had a splendid view to the south, and could see, about seventy miles off, very high snowy mountains, which form the southern extension of the Altai range and are the source of the
