To a sportsman the neighbourhood of Tobolsk affords endless amusement. Here are found every species of game compatible with the nature of the climate: the urhan, the heathcock, the partridge, which in winter turns white as a dove, woodcocks, snipes, and a prodigious variety of water-fowl. Vast flights of snowbirds, which are about the size of a lark, come to Siberia in autumn, and disappear in spring. In colour many of these birds are as white as snow, while others are speckled or brown. Bears, wolves, lynxes, several kinds of foxes, squirrels, ermines, sables, and martens, abound in the woods. The ermines generally burrow in the open field, where they are caught in traps baited with a morsel of flesh. These animals are caught only in winter, when their fur is white and most valuable. They turn brown in summer. The hares, likewise, and the foxes of these northern regions, imitate the changes of mother earth; and in winter are clad in furs resembling in colour the snows over which they run. During his stay at Tobolsk, Bell made numerous inquiries respecting the religion and manners of the Tartars inhabiting the region lying between the Caspian and Mongolia; and learned, among other particulars, that in an ancient palace, the construction of which some attributed to Timour, others to Genghis Khan, there were preserved numerous scrolls of glazed paper, fairly written in many instances in gilt characters. Some of these scrolls were said to be black, though the far greater number were white. They were written in the Kalmuck language. While our traveller was busy in these inquiries, a soldier suddenly presented himself before him in the street with a bundle of these scrolls in his hand; which, as the man offered them for a small sum, he purchased, and brought home to England. They were here distributed among our traveller’s learned friends; and as Sir Hans Sloane was reckoned among the number, they will eventually find their way, I presume, to the British Museum. But whether or not any of them have as yet been translated, I have not been able to discover. Two similar scrolls, sent by Peter I. to Paris, were immediately turned into French by the _savans_ of that capital, to whom no language comes amiss, from that of the ancient Egyptians and Parsees to that of modern sparrows, and were said to be merely a commission to a lama, or priest, and a form of prayer. Whether this interpretation may be depended on, says Bell, I shall not determine.