HAEDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIE. 



231 



the fibres of it being apparently rasped through lon- 

 gitudinally, by being alternately engulfed by this 

 invagination of a considerable portion of the pointed 

 muzzle and again disgorged by an opposite process. 

 A small, detached trifoliate leaf of the crow-pea 

 (Lotus coruicuZattis) was also seized by a worm, and 

 the muzzle invaginated until most of the leaf was out 

 of sight ; this leaf was again disgorged and again 

 swallowed, the alternate action being repeated a few 

 times, and finally the leaf was entirely rejected and 

 other food searched after. On picking up and 

 examining this leaf I found it, though detached, 

 quite fresh, and with the extremities of its three 

 leaflets gnawed, whilst a small hole, gnawed 

 apparently, also existed in one of them. Had this 

 leaf been detached by another earthworm, and partly 

 consumed — rasped down — by it ? Why was it finally 

 rejected ? Possibly it had been previously attacked, 

 gnawed and detached by a snail or a slug, both these 

 creatures being out in force this evening, the large 

 black slug being very observable amongst its con- 

 geners ; and this latter mollusk, I have observed, can 

 very effectually mow down soft vegetable tissues with 

 the rhythmical sweep of its lingual ribbon. 



yune \%th. — In the evening after a heavy rainfall 

 accompanied by lightning and thunder, when it had 

 faired up, and though dull was otherwise fine and 

 mild, a large (half-acre) garden was literally alive 

 with earthworms, mostly of large size, some indeed 

 of enormous dimensions. At dusk they became still 

 more numerous, their numbers being to me simply 

 wonderful. Some turnip-drills in particular exhibited 

 their forces, being clad with them both in the furrows 

 and up their sides ; though the garden in most other 

 parts was likewise all alive with them, their tails in 

 their burrows while they projected the body to many 

 and various lengths in search of food, in some 

 instances, where the individual was of larger size 

 than ordinary, to nearly a foot. Their food was 

 vegetable, consisting of the flowers of the sycamore 

 and the seeds of the elm, both of which lay thick 

 upon the ground, the garden being bordered on its 

 south side by trees ; also pieces of potato leaves, 

 both fresh and decaying, and portions of decaying 

 leaves of curly greens, which I broke up and laid in 

 their way. As soon as the tapering cephalic extremity 

 of the worm came into contact with any portion of 

 vegetable suited to the palate of the individual, it 

 slowly but surely secured it ; and then the worm 

 contracted itself by degrees, drawing with it what it 

 had thus secured, which, if not too big, was entirely 

 withdrawn into the burrow out of sight : when too 

 big, it stuck in the entrance, but I could not discern 

 whether or not the worm fed upon it thus situated, 

 as the light was now much too feeble to admit of that. 

 Though now nearly dark, the curlews (Numcnius 

 arquata) were cur-letv-'mg close at hand ; and I could 

 trace a small flock of sea-crows (black-headed gulls, 

 Larus ridibundus) as they winged their way along the 



sinuous course of a small stream, by the occasional 

 glancings of their white plumage. Had the earth- 

 worms brought them out to feed ? I have never 

 before observed the gulls flying at dusk. 



Charles Robson. 

 Elswich, Nezucastle-upon- Tyne. 



NOTES ON THE LEMMING. 

 I By John Wager. 



DURING many summer tours in Norway and 

 Sweden, including part of Lapland, and to a 

 great extent pedestrian, the writer has repeatedly 

 met with that interesting little animal, the lemming. 

 A record of his observations, carefully noted down 

 at the time they were made, together with information 

 on the subject derived from persons dwelling in the 

 vicinity of its haunts, may have some value in, at 

 least, confirming, and perhaps on some points 

 correcting — if not in extending — the knowledge 

 respecting it which previous writers have communi- 

 cated. Exact and circumstantial acquaintanceship- 

 with the little creature is not easily obtainable ; and 

 the intelligent Swedish pastor of a wide Lapland, 

 parish informs me that even the naturalists of 

 Stockholm have little precise knowledge of its 

 ordinary life. Its proper habitat, or home, so far as 

 it has a fixed dwelling-place, is situated upon 

 desolate and uninhabited mountain tracts ; and even 

 over those : you may chance to wander for days, or 

 possibly weeks, without a single lemming appearing, 

 in view. The nomadic Laplanders, who have the 

 best opportunity for observing it, say there is no- 

 certain locality where it constantly and permanently 

 resides ; that (independent of its greater migrations) 

 its habit is to wander at intervals, like their own 

 reindeer, from one mountain tract to another ; and 

 Swedish settlers in Lapland have also informed me 

 they may at one time meet with lemmings on any 

 given mountain and at another time find none. 



My own experience tends to corroborate this 

 statement. In 1S61, when I first visited Norway, 

 and spent three months there, besides a coasting 

 voyage to Hammerfest from Trondhjem, among 

 other mountain excursions including the Dovre-fjeld, 

 I crossed on foot the wide high table-lands between 

 Romsdalen and Lorn ; the fgrander region of the 

 Jotunfjeldene, and the broad and dreary backs of the 

 mountains which rise between L?erdals6ren and 

 Urland ; and during the whole of the tour I caught 

 sight of one lemming only, just as it was disappearing 

 in its hole. Upon the same tract also, on the way to 

 Lom, the excrement of some small animal, probably 

 the lemming, appeared contiguous to numerous 

 holes. Next year (1S62) starting from Christiansand 

 about the first of June, I travelled, chiefly on foot, 

 from Christiansand to Molde ; again traversed 



