The Crimea and the part of the mainland which lies to the north of it (the province of Taurida), for which we have detailed data, offer an excellent illustration of that movement.  This territory began to be colonized, after its annexation in 1783, by Great, Little, and White Russians—­Cossacks, freemen, and runaway serfs—­who came individually or in small groups from all corners of Russia.  They took first to cattle-breeding, and when they began later on to till the soil, each one tilled as much as he could afford to.  But when—­immigration continuing, and perfected ploughs being introduced—­land stood in great demand, bitter disputes arose among the settlers.  They lasted for years, until these men, previously tied by no mutual bonds, gradually came to the idea that an end must be put to disputes by introducing village-community ownership.  They passed decisions to the effect that the land which they owned individually should henceforward be their common property, and they began to allot and to re-allot it in accordance with the usual village-community rules.  The movement gradually took a great extension, and on a small territory, the Taurida statisticians found 161 villages in which communal ownership had been introduced by the peasant proprietors themselves, chiefly in the years 1855-1885, in lieu of individual ownership.  Quite a variety of village-community types has been freely worked out in this way by the settlers.(38) What adds to the interest of this transformation is that it took place, not only among the Great Russians, who are used to village-community life, but also among Little Russians, who have long since forgotten it under Polish rule, among Greeks and Bulgarians, and even among Germans, who have long since worked out in their prosperous and half-industrial Volga colonies their own type of village community.(39) It is evident that the Mussulman Tartars of Taurida hold their land under the Mussulman customary law, which is limited personal occupation; but even with them the European village community has been introduced in a few cases.  As to other nationalities in Taurida, individual ownership has been abolished in six Esthonian, two Greek, two Bulgarian, one Czech, and one German village.  This movement is characteristic for the whole of the fertile steppe region of the south.  But separate instances of it are also found in Little Russia.  Thus in a number of villages of the province of Chernigov the peasants were formerly individual owners of their plots; they had separate legal documents for their plots and used to rent and to sell their land at will.  But in the fifties of the nineteenth century a movement began among them in favour of communal possession, the chief argument being the growing number of pauper families.  The initiative of the reform was taken in one village, and the others followed suit, the last case on record dating from 1882.  Of course there were struggles between the poor, who usually claim for communal possession, and the rich, who usually