THE NORWEGIAN LEMMING. 



409 



calm day, and perishes with its front still pointing westward. No 

 faint heart lingers on the way ; and no survivor returns to the moun- 

 tains. 



There appears to have been a difficulty in keeping these restless 

 creatures in captivity, both because they escape through incredibly- 

 small apertures (generally, however, dying from internal injuries thus 

 caused), and because they will gnaw through a stout wooden cage in 

 one night, and devote every spare moment to this one purpose, with 

 a pertinacity worthy of Baron Trenck. At all events, few have been 

 brought alive to this country, and none have survived. At present 

 (February, 1877) I have one which I have preserved since September 

 last, defeating his attempts at escape by lining the cage with tin, and 

 allowing him a plentiful supply of fresh water, in which he is always 

 dabbling. With the approach of winter all his attempts to escape 

 ceased, and I now always take the little stranger for an airing in my 

 closed hands while his bed is being made and his room cleaned out. 

 He seems to like this, but after a few minutes a gentle nibble at my 

 finger testifies to his impatience; and if tliis be not attended to, the 



Feat. 



Pig. 3.- 



-Section of Heimdalen showing the Leimnings' track, which ooes uoi loliow tho water- 

 shed. 



biting progresses in a crescendo scale until it becomes unbearable, 

 although it has never under these circumstances drawn blood. My 

 little prisoner shows few other signs of tameness, but the fits of jump- 

 ing, biting, and snarling rage have almost ceased. I expect, how- 

 ever, that, with the return of spring, the migratory impulse will be 

 i-enewed, and that he will kill himself against the wires of his cage 

 like a swallow. 



The reader is now in a position to consider the three questions 

 raised by the above facts, and those questions are as follow : 1. 

 Whence do the lemmings come ? 2. Whither do they go ? 3. Why 

 do they migrate at all ? With regard to the first, no one has yet sup- 

 plied an answer. They certainly do not exist in my neighborhood 



