One remarkable characteristic of the Kunges forests, and probably of other wooded glens on the northern slope of the Tian Shan is the great abundance of apple and apricot-trees[1] producing excellent fruit. The apricots, or as they are here called, uriuk, ripen in July; the apples by the end of August. The latter are about the size of a hen's egg, pale yellow in colour, and with an agreeable bitter-sweet flavour. We were just in time for the apple harvest on the Kunges; the trees were laden with the fruit, quantities of which strewed the ground, where they decay without benefiting any one, or are devoured by wild boar, bears, deer, and goats, which at this season of the year descend in numbers from the adjacent hills. Wild boar and bears are particularly addicted to apples, and the latter are known to indulge to excess in their favourite dainty.
Our sport with the larger game was tolerably successful, and we secured some fine specimens for our collection; amongst these an old dark-brown bear of a species peculiar to the Tian Shan, and distinguishable from the common bruin by the long white claws on the fore-feet—a peculiarity which induced Sévertseff to name it Ursus leuconyx.[2]
