Beyond the Caspian A Naturalist in Central Asia

Carruthers, Douglas

Published by Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1949

orig.cloth,22 full page plates of which six are coloured..290pp,folding colour map at rear

Carruthers states,"I was lucky. My new home stretched from the Caspian to Mongolia, from Siberia to India. My playground was the Gobi Desert and the Hungry Steppe; my garden the flower-strewn Heavenly Mountains and the rose-encumbered gorges of Bukhara. My park comprised the Hindu Kush, the Pamirs and the Altai. My chase held the giant wild ram, the heraldic beast of central Asia - primeval patriarch, perhaps of all the flocks on earth, besides the world's biggest ibex, stags, and roe-deer there were tigers and wild asses. The river valleys swarmed with pheasants and the open plains with partridges; myriads of wildfowl crowded the lakes in winter. For three years I had the run of it all, but three years were not enough."