Beyond the Ural River the Saiga extends widely over the Kirghiz Steppes of Central Asia north of the Aral. Mr. William Bateson, F.R.S., has kindly favoured us with the following notes of what he heard and saw of the Saiga when in this district in 1896–7:—
“The Saiga is fairly common in the Kirghiz Steppes, inhabiting the dry tracts covered with various species of Artemisia (Kirghiz, Jusun), upon which no doubt it feeds. It is not found in the sandy regions of the Kara-kum. I believe also that it does not live in the moister steppes, which bear a meadow vegetation. Its northern distribution in West Central Asia must therefore be bounded by the valley of the Irtish and its tributaries, which is all meadow-land. I met with Saigas first at the end of July 1896, in the neighbourhood of Lake Tschalkar, in the Turgai district. In this region we came upon their tracks constantly, and occasionally saw herds of various sizes from ten or a dozen to about a hundred. When we appeared they made off. In doing so I noticed that they generally travelled at right angles to our line of approach, though this may have been due to some accident in the lie of the ground. The Kirghiz catch them in traps set in their runs. A young one so caught was brought to me on July 27, 1896. Its horns and horn-cores were only slightly developed.
“In the following year I travelled from Kozalinsk, on the Aral Sea, to Lake Balkhash, following the Shu River. In this journey we saw Saigas from time to time on the edge of the Bek Pak Dala, or Hungry Steppe, in April, but no large herds were seen. The Kirghiz spoke of them as common in the Bek Pak. Both this district and the Tschalkar Steppes, except for wells on the caravan-roads, are almost waterless after the snow has disappeared, so probably the Saiga can subsist without more water than the dew and its food-plants provide.
“The Kirghiz name of the Saiga is ‘Kiik’ and the word Saiga is only known to them as Russian, in which language, however, the word is not really ‘Saiga,’ but ‘Säigak.’”
As regards the range of the Saiga at the present time, Herr E. Büchner, Director of the Zoological Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, has kindly favoured us with the following particulars:—
The Saiga is still met with, although very unfrequently, in the country of the Ural Cossacks between the Wolga and the Ural, and extends occasionally into the Government of Samara. East of the river Ural its range extends over the Kirghiz Steppes and the steppe district of all West Siberia—Turgai, Akmolinsk, and Semipalatinsk. South of this the Saiga is also found in the steppes of Russian Turkestan and in the Dsungarian steppes of Western Mongolia, but not in Transcaspia.
Such is the range of the Saiga at present. As already shown, it was much wider than now even within the period of history. But when we go back into the Pleistocene times we have good evidence that the Saiga had a very much more extensive range, its fossil remains having been obtained from the caverns and superficial deposits of Hungary, Belgium, and Southern France. In the last-named country the researches of French palæontologists have proved that its bones and teeth occur in considerable numbers in certain of the cave deposits in the Departments of Vienne, Dordogne, Tarn-et-Garonne, and Haute-Garonne. Moreover, as shown by Mons. Gervais, at least one recognizable sketch of the head of the Saiga has been found on an artificially incised bone of the character so often met with in caverns where relics of human handiwork occur. It appears, therefore, that the Saiga inhabited Western Europe as late as the era of Palæolithic man, and was, moreover, in all probability one of the objects of his chase.
Still more interesting, however, is it to find that, as shown by Mr. A. Smith Woodward in a paper read before the Zoological Society in 1890, the Saiga was also found in former days in Great Britain. During excavations made in that year in the Pleistocene deposits near Twickenham, a fine example of the frontlet and horn-cores of an adult male Saiga tatarica was discovered. By the kindness of the Zoological Society we are enabled to reproduce the figure of this interesting specimen (fig. 50, p. 39), which was exhibited by Mr. A. Smith Woodward on the occasion in question, and is now in the gallery of the British Museum.
Finally we may mention that, as has been recorded by Prof. Nehring, there have been discovered in Moravia remains of a Saiga differing from the living species in having three, in place of two, lower premolars[2]. From the occurrence of these remains, and those of other mammals now characteristic of the steppes in Western Europe, it has been argued by geologists that steppe-like conditions and climate must formerly have prevailed over large districts that have now quite changed their character.
