The traveller has no sooner crossed the Dnieper, at Krementshug, than he sees a little animal gliding about everywhere through the gi'ass, and even along the high road. This little animal is called by the Russians sooslik ; by the German colonists, earth-hare ; and by the learned, cytillus vulgaris. It is a graceful little creature, and quite peculiar to the steppe, never found in woody regions, and rarely even in the vicinity of a bush. It is particularly fond of the bulbous plants that abound in the steppe, and multiplies astonishingly. In manner and appearance it is something between a marmot and a squirrel, smaller than the former, and diflering from the latter in the colour of the fur and the shortness of its tail. The soosliks burrow under the ground, and hoard up a stock of food for the winter. Their holes have always two entrances, and it is easy to drive them from their cover by poming water in at one end, for to water they have so great on aversion, that they are always observed to decrease in numbers in wet seasons, and to multijjly astonishingly in dry ones. The lively and frolicsome character of the sooslik is a constant source of amusement to a stranger. The little creatures are seen in every direction ; sometimes gamboling together in the grass, at others sitting timidly at the doors of their houses, to watch the apjiroach of an enemy. If a man or other strange object draws near, they rise u)on their hind legs, like miniature kangaroos, and stretch their little heads up so high, that one might almost fancy they had the power of drawing themselves out like a telescope. Their little furs are used by the women as edgings for their dresses, and entire cloaks and dressing-gowns are often made of them, and sold at the Leipzig fair, where they are known by the name of sussvlchvn. Of all the quadrupeds of the steppe, the sooslik is by far the most abundant ; it afl&)rd3 the chief article of food to the wild dogs, and is a constant ohject of chase to wolves, foxes, eagles, hawks, and other animals of prey.
The next in importance among the quadrupeds of the steppe is the mouse, which frequents the granaries in immense numbers ; so much so, that the farmers will sometimes set fire to a whole rick of corn, for the mere purpose of destroying the mice. They multiply more particularly in moist seasons, and in this respect offer a contrast to the habits of the sooslik.
The wolf of the steppe is a smaller animal than the forest wolf, and distinguishes himself from the wolves of other comitries by his subterranean propensities. Natural caverns become elsewhere the refuge of the wolf, but on the steppe he burrows Hke a rabbit, and it is there by no means an uncommon thing to find a nest of young wolves several fathoms deep in the ground. In the neighbourhood of Odessa, and the other large towns, these four-footed sheep-stealers are but seldom met with; but in no part of the world do they abound more than in the woodland districts by which the steppe is skirted, and from these haunts they sally forth in countless numbers, to prowl around the flocks and herds of the open country. Every farmhouse in the steppe is surrounded by fences twelve or fourteen feet high to protect them against the inroads of the wolves, yet these banditti of the plain are incessant in their attacks, and cases are by no means uncommon of their carrying off even infants from the cradle.