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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in width, was often thickly studded with swimming lemmings, every 

 head pointing westward ; but I observed that when my boat came near 

 enough to frighten them they would lose all idea of direction, and 

 frequently swim back to tlie bank they had left. When the least 

 wind ruftied the water every swimmer was drowned ; and never did 

 frailer barks tempt a more treacherous sea, as the wind swept daily 

 down the valley, and wi*ecked all who were then afloat. It is impos- 

 sible not to feel pity for these self-haunted fugitives. A mere cloud 

 passing over the sun affrighted them ; the approach of horse, cow, 

 doo-, or man, alike roused their impotent anger, and their little bodies 

 were convulsively pressed against the never-failing stone of vantage 

 {see Fig. 1), while they uttered cries of rage. I collected 500 skins, 

 with the idea of making a rug, but was surprised to find that a por- 

 tion of the rump was nearly always denuded of hair, and it was long 

 before I discovered that this was caused by the habit of nervously 

 backing up against a stone, of which I have just spoken. As this 

 action is excited by every appearance of an enemy, it seems surpris- 

 ing that a natural callosity should not take the place of so constant a 

 lesion ; possibly, however, the time during which this lesion occurs is 

 too short to cause constitutional change. 



Early in the autumn, and just a year after their arrival at Heim- 

 dalen, the western migration commenced anew. Every morning I 

 found swarms of lemmings swimming the lake diagonally, instead of 

 diverging from their course so as to go round it, and mounting the 

 steep slopes of Heimdals-lio (Figs. 2 and 3) on their way to the coast, 



Fig. 2. Plan of Heimdalen drawn to scale, in which the course of the Lemrainge, indicated by 

 the arrow*:, is seen to crops Lake Heimdalsvand and the Fwift river Leirungen, both of wliicli 

 might be avoided by a slight dUour. The river is of glacier origin, very cold and very rapid. 



where the harassed crowd, thinned by the unceasing attacks of the 

 wolf, the fox, and the dog, and even the reindeer, pursued by eagle, 

 hawk, and owl {see frontispiece), and never spared by man himself, 

 yet still a vast multitude, plunges into the Atlantic Ocean on the first 



