Among the birds, the most abundant are the heathcocks, which form large colonies in all the forests. Many sorts of eagles and falcons inhabit the highest tops of the fir-trees. There are ten diiferent kinds of owls which frequent the Baltic provinces. The lakes are inhabited by numerous flocks of wild ducks and swans. Storks are said never to be met with beyond the Dwina. Tmtle-doves, ring-doves, and wood-pigeons coo in the forests ; all the different small singing-birds, as larks, linnets, titmice, thrushes, goldfinches, bullfinches, and nightingales, which are found in Germany, are also common here.
Of all kinds of animals, amphibious reptiles are the scarcest ; yet the copper-snakes, which are very abundant, spoil many a pleasant walk. A great many kinds of fish are plentiful, particularly salmon, pike, and eels in the large rivers; carp, pike, tench, perch, and eels in the small streams and lakes : and turbots, sturgeon, haddocks, mackerel, herrings, and stromlinge in the surrounding seas.
Insects are also very abundant. Though in winter all seems lifeless and forsaken, yet in summer every corner is full of flying, fluttering, creeping life. Innumerable swarms of little venomous moths, called shnaeken, rise from the rivers and marshes, and sting with needlelike sharpness, tormenting alike man and beast. They are almost invisible from extreme minuteness, and fill the air like dust. Numberless hordes of ephemera and mayflies flutter over every piece of water ; and copper-coloured, green, spotted, sti-iped, and common water insects, and a thousand others, float in thick clouds over the damp meadows in summer.
Flies, wasps, and gadflies indemnify themselves in July for their enforced torpidity in April and May ; and wild bees and ants are numerous in the forests. Every tree has its own peculiar worm; and these woodworms have increased so of late years as to destroy whole forests.
For many centuries the com of the Baltic provinces has travelled all over tlie world. Sweden, Holland, England, and many other countries, have fed from these plentiful granaries for ages. These abundant stores of corn, nourished by the toil of enslaved and imrewarded thousands, hastily ripened by the brief hot northern summer, and joyfully reaped and gathered in by the owners of both men and grain, have' built the luxurious houses and formed the wealthy communities of Riga, Reval, Nan^a, and other cities, and connected the Baltic provinces with everv part of the earth.
The whole country, with the exception of the land possessed by the great cities in their immediate neighbourhood, is divided into great and small estates, called " Gebiete.'' There are 2500 such divisions in Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia. As the country contains 1600 square miles, each estate extends, on an average, to two-thiixls of a square mile, and 500
inhabitants. Many gebiete, however, contain ten, twenty, and even fifty square miles, with a population of 10,000 ; while others again fall far below the average.
The owners of these territories have always sought, as much as possible, to preserve the principle of unity and indivisibility. They never divide their estates, but leave them to the eldest son, and provide for the other sons and daughters in different ways. Neither are several estates ever united into one, for a lord who possesses more than one estate, always keeps each strictly apart, under a different administration.
The peasantry of one estate will differ strikingly in dress, manners, and customs from those of others. The serfs of every domain have much that is peculiar to themselves in the form and fashion of their harness, in the cut and colour of their coats and hats, and in their customs at weddings, festivals, &c. Even their moral characters are very various, so that the peasantry of one estate will be thievish, brutal, and deceitful, while those of another will be honest, civilized, and faithful.
The landowners keep the serfs of different estates strictly apart. They forbid and hinder, in every possible way, the intermarriages of serfs belonging to different domains.