It has been found that the Ag adsorbate forms a dilute chain structure on the Ta(211) surface upon heating to 600K. Ag atomic chains are arranged along the [111] direction of the substrate and occupy every second hollow row typical of this surface. In contrast, Au heated to 1000K is likely to produce a surface alloy with the substrate. The obtained STM results show that terrace edges of the clean Ta(211) surface are imperfect and contain adjacent atomic chains of different length and different separation in the [110] direction.