From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

According to the reports which I gathered after careful cross-examination of the Kirghiz, the archar occurs not only here, but also on other not very lofty ranges of the western Siberian steppes. They are said to go in small troops of five to fifteen head, rams and ewes living in separate companies until the breeding season. Each troop keeps its own ground unless it be startled or disturbed; in which case it hastens from one range to another, yet never very far. Towards sunset the herd ascends, under the guidance of the leader, to the highest peaks, there to sleep in places scarce accessible to other creatures; at sunrise, both old and young descend to the valleys to graze and to drink at chosen springs; at noon, they lie down to rest and ruminate in the shade of the rocks, in places which admit of open outlook; towards evening they descend again to graze. Such is their daily routine both in summer and winter. They eat such plants as domesticated sheep are fond of, and they are, when needs must, easily satisfied; but even in winter they rarely suffer from want, and in spring they become so vigorous that from that season until autumn they are fastidious, and will eat only the most palatable herbs. Their usual mode of motion is a rapid, exceedingly expeditious trot; and even when frightened they do not quicken their steps very markedly unless a horseman pursue them. Then they always take to the rocks and soon make their escape. When in flight either on the plain or on the mountains they almost always keep in line, one running close behind another, and, if suddenly surprised and scattered, they re-form in linear order as speedily as possible. Among the rocks they move, whether going upwards or downwards, with surprising ease, agility, and confidence. Without any apparent strain, without any trace of hurry, they clamber up and down almost vertical paths, leap wide chasms, and pass from the heights to the valley almost as if they were birds and could fly. When they find themselves pursued, they stand still from time to time, clamber to a loftier peak to secure a wider prospect, and then go on their way so calmly that it seems as if they mocked their pursuer. Consciousness of their strength and climbing powers seems to give them a proud composure. They never hurry, and have no cause to regret their deliberation except when they come within shot of the lurking ambuscade or the stealthy stalker.

Fig. 16.—Archar Sheep or Argali (Ovis Argali).

The sheep live at peace together throughout the year, and the rams only fight towards the breeding season. This occurs in the second half of October and lasts for almost a month. At this time the high-spirited, combative rams become greatly excited. The seniors make a stand and drive off all their weaker fellows. With their equals they fight for life or death. The rivals stand opposed in menacing attitudes; rearing on their hind-legs they rush at one another, and the crash of powerful horns is echoed in a dull rumble among the rocks. Sometimes it happens that they entangle one another, for the horns may interlock inseparably, and both perish miserably; or one ram may hurl the other over a precipice, where he is surely dashed to pieces.

During the last days of April or the first of May the ewe brings forth a single lamb or a pair. These lambs, as we found out from captive ones, are able in a few hours to run with their mother, and in a few days they follow her over all the paths, wherever she leads them, with the innate agility and surefootedness characteristic of their race. When serious danger threatens, the mother hides them in the nooks of the rocks, where the enemy may perchance overlook their presence. She returns, of course, after she has successfully eluded the foe. The lambkin, pressed close to the ground, lies as still as a mouse, and, looking almost like a stone, may often escape detection; but not by any means always is he safe, least of all from the golden eagle, which often seizes and kills a lamb which the mother has left unprotected. So we observed when hunting on the Arkat Mountains. Captive archar lambs which we got from the Kirghiz were most delightful creatures, and showed by the ready way in which they took to the udders of their foster-mothers that they might have been reared without special difficulty. Should it prove possible to bring the proud creatures into domestication the acquisition would be one of the greatest value. But of this the Kirghiz does not dream, he thinks only of how he may shoot this wild sheep or the other. Not that the chase of this powerful animal is what one could call a passion with him; indeed the sheep’s most formidable enemy is the wolf, and it is only in the deep snow in winter that even he manages to catch an archar.

Fig. 17.—Pallas’s Sand-grouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus).

As on the mountains, so on the driest, dreariest stretches of the steppes, which even in spring suggest African deserts, there are characteristic animals. In such places almost all the plants of the highlands and valleys disappear except the low tufted grass and diminutive bushes of wormwood. Here, however, grows a remarkable shrub which one does not see elsewhere, a shrub called ramwood on account of its extreme hardness and toughness, which baffles the axe. It roots on those rare spots in the wilderness where the rain-storms have washed together some poor red clay. There it sometimes grows into bushwork of considerable extent, affording shelter and shade to other plants, so that these green spots come to look like little oases in the desert. But these oases are no more lively than the dreary steppes around, for apart from a shrike, the white-throat, and a wood-wren, one sees no bird, and still less any mammal. On the other hand, amid the desolation there live some of the most notable of the steppe animals, along with others which occur everywhere; besides the short-toed lark and calandra lark there is the coal-black Tartar lark, which those aware of the general colour-resemblance between ground-birds and the ground would naturally look for on the black earth. Along with the small plover there is the gregarious lapwing, along with the great bustard the slender ruffed bustard, which the Kirghiz call the ambler, along with the sand-grouse there is Pallas’s sand-grouse or steppe-grouse.[24] It was this last bird which some years ago migrated in large numbers into Germany and settled on the dunes and sandy places, but was so inhospitably received by us, so ruthlessly persecuted with guns, snares, and even poison, that it forsook our inhuman country and probably returned to its home. Here, too, along with the specially abundant souslik, there are steppe antelopes and the Kulan, the fleet wild horse of the steppes. I must restrict myself to giving a brief sketch of the last, so as not to overstep too far the limits of the time allowed me.

If Darwin’s general conclusions be reliable, we may perhaps regard the kulan as the ancestor of our horse, which has been gradually improved by thousands of years of breeding and selection. This supposition is more satisfactory than the vague and unsupported assertion that the ancestor of our noblest domestic animal has been lost, and to me it is more credible than the opinion which finds in the Tarpan which roams to-day over the Dnieper steppes an original wild horse, and not merely one that has reverted to wildness.[25] As recent investigations in regard to our dogs, whose various breeds we cannot compute with even approximate accuracy, point to their origin from still existing species of wolf and jackal, my conclusion in regard to the horse acquires collateral corroboration. Moreover, the ancestor of our domestic cat, now at last recognized, still lives in Africa, and the ancestor of our goat in Asia Minor and in Crete.[26] As to the pedigree of our sheep and cattle we cannot yet decide with certainty, but I have consistent information from three different quarters, including the report of a Kirghiz who declared that he had himself hunted the animal, to the effect that in the heart of the steppes of Mongolia there still lives a camel with all the characteristics of wildness.[27] I cannot doubt the truth of the reports which I received, and the only question is, whether this camel represents the original stock still living in a wild state, or whether, like the tarpan, it be only an offshoot of the domesticated race which has returned to wild life. As the veil is slowly being lifted which hid, and still hides, the full truth from our inquiring eyes, as the ancestors of our domesticated animals are being discovered one after the other, and that among species still living, why should we suppose that the ancestor of the horse, the conditions of whose life correspond so thoroughly with those of the broad measureless steppes, has died out without leaving a trace? It is, I maintain, among the still living wild horses of the Old World that we must look for the progenitor of our horse, and among these none has more claims to the honour of being regarded as the ancestor of this noble creature than the kulan. It may be that the tarpan more closely resembles our horse, but, if it be true that the Hyksos brought the horse to the ancient Egyptians (from whose stone records we have our first knowledge of the domesticated animal), or that the Egyptians themselves tamed the horse before the time of the Hyksos, and therefore at least one and a half thousand years before our era, then certainly the race had not its origin in the steppes of the Dnieper and the Don. For nearer at hand, namely in the steppes and deserts of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Persia, and in several valleys of Arabia and India, they had a wild horse full of promise, one which still lives, our kulan. This differs indeed in several features from our horse, but not more than the greyhound, the poodle, or the Newfoundland differs from the wolf or any other wild dog, not more than the dachshund, the terrier, or the spaniel from the jackal, not more than the pony from the Arabian horse, or the Belgian-French cart-horse from the English racer. The differences between our domesticated horse and the wild form which seems to me its most probable ancestor are indeed important, but horse and kulan seem to regard themselves as belonging to the same blood, since they seek each other’s company.

When, on the 3rd June, 1876, we were riding through the dreary desert steppes between the Saisan lake and the Altai—a region from which I have drawn the main features of the above sketch—we saw in the course of the forenoon no fewer than fifteen kulans. Among these we observed one pair in particular. They stood on the broad crest of a near hillock, their forms sharply defined against the blue sky, and powerfully did they raise the desire for the chase in us and in our companion Kirghiz. One of them made off as we appeared, and trotted towards the mountain; the other stood quietly, and seemed as if considering a dilemma, then raised its head once and again, and at last came running towards us. All guns were at once in hand; the Kirghiz slowly and carefully formed a wide semicircle with the intention of driving the strangely stupid and inconceivably careless creature towards us. Nearer and nearer, halting now and then, but still steadily nearer he came, and we already looked upon him as a sure captive. But a smile broke over the face of the Kirghiz riding beside me; he had not only discovered the motive of the creature’s apparently foolish behaviour, he had recognized the animal itself. It was a Kirghiz horse, dappled like a kulan, which, having strayed from his master’s herd, had fallen in with wild horses, and, for lack of better company, had stayed with them. In our horses he had recognized his kin, and had therefore forsaken his friends in need. Having come quite near to the Kirghiz, he stopped again as if to reflect whether he should once more yield his newly-healed back to the galling saddle; but the first steps towards return were followed by others, and without an attempt at flight he allowed them to halter him, and in a few minutes he was trotting as docilely by the side of one of the horsemen as if he had never known the free life of his ancestors. Thus we were able to confirm by personal experience the already accepted fact, that horse and kulan do sometimes keep company.