Abstract
UNTIL within the last thirty yearsTurkistan has been unknown to science, and what is now ascertained concerning its fauna and flora is for the most part inaccessible to the scientific world because written in Russian. Not that autoptic writers of eminence upon the zoology of the country are numerous. They do not number a dozen, the names most conspicuous being Prjevalsky, Alpheraky, Bogdanoff, Severtsoff, and especially Fedchenko. Prjevalsky 's routes do not touch mine, except in the Kuldja region, where also Alpheraky travelled, and collected Lepidoptera, with a list of which he has favoured me. To Bogdanoffand SevertsofF I am indebted for information not previously published in English, whilst in connection with the immense work that bears Fedchenko's name I have had the valuable help of Madame Olga Fedchenko, who both accompanied her husband on his scientific journeys and, after his lamented death, edited his works. When I add that I have before me proofs of between three and four thousand species of fauna and flora, in about twenty lists with introductions, the scientific reader will not need to be told that in the compass of a single article I can but touch the fringe of the subject. I have ventured to think, however, the readers of NATURE might be interested in a plain statement that would give some idea of the little-known fauna of Turkistan, as well as indicate what I hope to publish shortly in fuller form.
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LANSDELL, H. The Fauna of Russian Central Asia . Nature 32, 56–58 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/032056a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/032056a0