STUDIES OF WILD LIFE AND SCENES IN MANY LANDS BY THE NATURALIST-TRAVELLER ALFRED EDMUND BREHM AUTHOR OF “BIRD-LIFE”, “TIERLEBEN”, ETC. ETC. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY MARGARET R. THOMSON EDITED BY J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., F.R.S.E. ———————————— WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS ———————————— LONDON BLACKIE & SON, Limited , 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C. GLASGOW AND DUBLIN 1896...

TO THE GERMAN EDITION. Six years have passed since the grave at Renthendorf closed over the remains of my esteemed father, whose death—all too early—was as great a loss to Science as to those who loved and honoured him. It was strange that his eventful and adventurous life, in the course of which he visited and explored four quarters of the globe, should have ended at the little spot in green Thuringia where he was born. He had just reached his fifty-fifth year when his lips, so apt in speech, w

TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION. It has been a privilege to make available to English readers a book which shows a great naturalist at his best—a book that presents the reader with a series of vivid pictures of wild life and scenery, painted from actual observation, and with all the truth and accuracy that belong to the artist and man of science combined. It consists of a number of papers or articles that were originally read as public lectures and were afterwards collected into a volume that has met

BY J. ARTHUR THOMSON. BREHM’S PLACE AMONG NATURALIST-TRAVELLERS. Though Brehm’s lectures might well be left, as his son has said, to speak for themselves, it seems useful to introduce them in their English dress with some notes on the evolution of the naturalist-traveller and on Brehm’s place in the honourable list; for an adequate appreciation of a book like this depends in part on a recognition of the position it occupies among analogous works, and on having some picture of the illustrious aut

“ When the Creator of the worlds had made the earth, best loved of all, and was rejoicing in His perfect work, the devil was seized with a desire to bring it all to nought. Not yet banished from heaven, he lived among the archangels in the abodes of the blessed. Up to the seventh heaven he flew, and, seizing a great stone, hurled it with might down on the earth exulting in the beauty of its youth. But the Creator saw the ruthless deed, and sent one of His archangels to avert the evil. The angel

Around the North Pole lies a broad belt of inhospitable land, a desert which owes its special character rather to the water than to the sun. Towards the Pole this desert gradually loses itself in fields of ice, towards the south in dwarfed woods, becoming itself a field of snow and ice when the long winter sets in, while stunted trees attempt the struggle for existence only in the deepest valleys or on the sunniest slopes. This region is the Tundra. [6] It is a monotonous picture which I attempt

There is perhaps monotony, but there is also the interest of a well-marked individuality in that immense tract of country which includes the whole of Central Asia, and extends into Southern Europe, and which forms the region of the steppes. To the superficial observer it may seem an easy thing to characterize these steppes, but the difficulty of the task is soon felt by the careful observer. For the steppes are not so invariably uniform, so absolutely changeless as is usually supposed. They have

Siberian scenery gives one an impression of uniformity and monotony, which is mainly due to the fact that the whole country consists of three zones, each more or less homogeneous within itself, though distinct from the other two. Each of these zones preserves its special character everywhere, and the same picture is repeated a hundred times, satiating and blunting the senses till one becomes almost incapable of recognizing or appreciating the charms of any scene. Thus it is that we seldom hear a

The north of Africa is desert, must be desert, and will be desert for ever. For between the Red Sea and the Atlantic, the land-area exposed to the scorching sun is so extensive that the surrounding seas have not their usual climatic importance. The Red Sea is out of account altogether; even the Mediterranean is too small to have great influence, and the Atlantic Ocean affects only a narrow belt along the west coast. Over regions so vast and so hot, every cloud is dispersed without moistening or

Rich as the African steppe really is, incomparably rich as it seems when compared with the desert, it nowhere exhibits the full luxuriance of tropical vegetation. It indeed receives everywhere the blessing of life-giving water; but this lasts too short a time to have a permanent influence. With the cessation of the rains the power of growth comes to an end, and heat and drought destroy what the rains have produced. Therefore only those plants can flourish in the steppe the course of whose life i

The love of travel, as we understand it, is not found among animals, not even among the birds, whose sublime powers of flight over land and sea so much excite our envy. For no animals wander, careless and free, like the travellers who go forth to study the manners and customs of other lands; they cling to the soil even more closely than we do, and they are bound to the place of their birth, by habit or indolence, more closely than we are by our love of home. When it does happen that they forsake

An irresistible instinct, an all-compelling law of nature, moves every living creature to seek a mate of its own species but of opposite sex, to unite a second existence with its own, to awaken responsive emotions through complete self-surrender, and thus to form the closest bond which links being to being, life to life. No power is strong enough to set aside this law, no command authoritative enough to influence it. Yielding to no hindrance this instinct overcomes every obstacle, and presses vi

Sheikh Kemal el Din Demiri, a learned Arab, who died at Damascus about the year 1405, according to our reckoning, relates in his book, Heiat el Heivan ; or, The Life of Animals , the following wonderful story, which is based on one of the Prophet’s utterances:— “Long before Mohammed, the Prophet and Messenger of God the All-merciful, had kindled the light of Faith, before Issa or Jesus of Nazareth had lived and taught, the town Aila, on the Red Sea, was inhabited by a numerous population who pro

On the fringe of the desert, under a thick group of palms, a small tent is pitched. Around it is a motley collection of bales and boxes, built into a sort of barricade. Outside this some Nubian boys are lounging or squatting. They are in holiday garb, so to speak, for their glossy skins have been freshly smeared with grease. The travellers whom the tent shelters have come so far on a Nile boat, but as the river now describes a huge curve and abounds in rocks and rapids, they have decided to cut

[B] In order to understand and appreciate this chapter the reader should bear in mind that the Nile is in flood from June to about the end of September, being at its highest in the latter month, and at its lowest in April. At low Nile the rapids present a very different appearance from what they do at high Nile. Egypt and Nubia, though immediately adjacent, and closely connected by a river common to both, are essentially different countries. Through Egypt the sacred Nile flows with leisurely dig

We had left the populous streets of St. Petersburg and the gilded domes of Moscow far behind us; and before us rose the towers of Nijni-Novgorod on the further bank of the Oka. We had reason to be grateful for the manner of our reception in the two capitals of the Russian Empire. We had respectfully taken leave of his Majesty our own noble Emperor in Berlin, had received cordial recommendations from the German Foreign Office, and had met with a friendly welcome from the German Embassy in St. Pet

The struggle for existence which man has to maintain in Siberia is easy and toilless now, and will probably remain so for centuries to come—easy and toilless especially among the lavishly endowed lands in the south of the country, and not too hard or laborious even in those regions which we are wont to picture as an icy waste, an inhospitable desert, which we still regard in this light if we only travel hastily and unwillingly through them. In the far north of West Siberia the climate is harsh a

Though the steppe of Central Asia is really rich, and may even seem gay to one who visits it in spring, and though it contains much fruitful land, it is nevertheless only its most favoured portions which admit of a settled life, of a continued residence on any one particular spot. Constant wandering, coming and going, appearing and disappearing, is the lot of all the children of the steppe, men and animals alike. Certain portions submit to the labours of the husbandman; in others, towns and vill

To escape the threatening hand of justice, four thieves fled from the homes of honest men, and sought refuge and concealment in the vast steppe. On their flight, they fell in with two beggar-women, driven out, like themselves, from among their industrious fellows. The beggar-women found favour in the eyes of the thieves, and they married them, two thieves taking one woman. A great many children resulted from these alliances, so contrary to the laws of God and man, and the children became the par

Those who regard Siberia as merely a vast prison are as far from the truth as those who look upon it as one immeasurable waste of ice. Russia does indeed send thousands of criminals or others under sentence of punishment to Siberia every year; and there are among these some who, having been convicted of serious crimes against life and property, are not free during the whole of their enforced sojourn. But only a very small proportion of all the criminals are really in confinement for the whole pe

Hungary was, and is, and will continue to be one of the goals of the German ornithologist’s ambition. Situated more favourably than any other country in Europe, lying as it does between the North Sea and the Black Sea, the Baltic and the Mediterranean, the great northern plain and the Alps—including within its boundaries both the North and the South, steppes and mountains, forests, rivers, and marshes—it offers great advantages and attractions to resident and wandering birds alike, and thus poss