Of the higher animal life of the Ukraine on the middle and lower Dnieper, we are told, in a historical source, almost incredible facts prevailing about the middle of the 16th Century. “The Ukraine is so rich in game that bisons, wild horses and deer are hunted merely for the sake of their skins. Of their meat only the choicest cuts of chine and loin are used, all other parts thrown away. Hinds and young boars are not hunted at all. Roes and wild boars wander in great herds from the steppes into the woods [112]in winter, returning to the steppes in summer. During this season they are killed by the thousands. On all the rivers, streamlets, brooks, live innumerable beaver colonies. The bird world is so remarkably rich that enormous quantities of wild goose, wild duck, crane and swan eggs and young ones are gathered. In the rivers, such great shoals of fish swarm in the spring that the fishing spear thrown in stands upright.” Another chronicler, of the 17th Century, tells that he was present when a single throw of the net at the mouth of the Orel brought 2000 fish to light, of which the smallest was one foot long. Of the cat family, the lynx and the wildcat have become very rare and are met with only in the Carpathians and the Caucasus; the lynx also in the Polissye country. The bear, formerly very frequent thruout the Ukraine, is now also confined to these three regions. On the other hand, wolves, foxes, badgers, martens, polecats and all sorts of small animals of prey have survived, altho in very much smaller numbers. Of the large plant-eating animals the bison (thanks only to the unusual care on the part of the government) has survived in the primeval forest of Biloveza, the moose-deer only in the Polissye, the stag only in the Carpathians and the Caucasus. On the other hand, there are still a great many roes and wild boars in the woods. Of the rodents the hare is still common everywhere, while the beaver, which at one time inhabited all the rivers of the Ukraine, is now confined to the most inaccessible swamps of the Polissye and the Caucasian tributaries of the Kuban. The bird kingdom, too, has become much poorer in species. Large birds of prey, like eagles and hawks, nest only in the Carpathians and in the Caucasus—very seldom in the woods of the plain. The heath fowl and grouse seek the most inaccessible thickets, and even the number of small insect and grain-feeders has been greatly reduced. Of the waterfowl, wild ducks, wild geese, coot, [113]diving birds, etc., are still very numerous. Cranes and herons are rare. The former wealth of fish is ruined and no one takes care of the artificial raising of fish. To be sure, much fish is still caught, especially in the Dnieper and Don systems, mainly pike, tench, carp, crucian, shad, etc., and trout in the mountain streams; but of the abundance of even the comparatively recent past, there is no trace. Sturgeon, sterlet and other sea fish, which formerly came in great swarms up the Dniester, Boh