256 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



almost white under the belly ; black and orange 

 about the face ; a large patch of black on the 

 shoulders, from which brown-orange, intermixed more 

 or less with black hairs extends over the back to near 

 the tail — this portion having commonly a margin 

 in which the black hairs predominate, and often a 

 similar or more clearly defined dark streak extend- 

 ing through the centre of it from the black patch on 

 the shoulders. Its tail is covered with stiff hairs, 

 and stiff whiskers project from about its mouth. The 

 eyes are small, and the ears are so short as to be 

 scarcely perceivable among the soft fur. Its head 

 in shape bears some resemblance to that of a Guinea 



Pig- 

 Such are the bodily traits of the lemming ; its 



mental qualities are still more strikingly marked. 

 Among Norwegian peasants lemmings are very com- 

 monly called lomhunds (Incnd meaning a dog), and 

 very pert and spirited little dogs they are — quick in 

 movement, and active apparently by night as well as 

 by clay ; for once, when benighted late in the year 

 upon the Roldals-fjeld, while walking to and fro on 

 a limited space of level ground to keep myself from 

 freezing, I heard them running and squeaking about 

 my feet at intervals all the night through. On the 

 Urlands-fjeld when they saw me at some distance 

 they ran to their holes at as quick a pace as their 

 short legs would carry them ; but if I came upon them 

 unawares, as frequently happened, when they were 

 squatting by the side of a stone, a tuft of heather, or 

 dry grass, they made no attempt to escape, but 

 uttered a shrill and startling shriek and scream, 

 coming at the same moment as suddenly into view, 

 with bent backs and uplifted heads ; showing their 

 two long front teeth and angry little eyes ; violently 

 shaking their bodies and limbs also with a most 

 irritable, and irritating, movement — the result 

 perhaps of fear and anger combined ; and often they 

 sprang fiercely at me or my stick to the alarming 

 height of two or three inches from the ground. If 

 their strength and size were equal to their pluck, 

 they would soon rid the mountains of wolves, instead 

 of supplying them with dainty morsels of fresh meat. 

 "When you present to them the end of your stick they 

 bite it ; and if you compel them to retreat, they move 

 hinder-end foremost, contesting every inch of the 

 way. Their own diet consists of different kinds of 

 grass and other herbage, roots, leaves of the dwarf 

 birch, reindeer lichen, and bark of trees ; on the 

 Urlands-fjcld, as before said, their favourite food 

 seemed to be a small, rather thick and succulent leaf. 

 It is said they will also eat insects. Their migrations, 

 no doubt, 'are connected with the state of the food 

 supply ; without reading Malthus they become aware 

 sometimes that population has a tendency to increase 

 faster than the means of subsistence, and, therefore, 

 to avoid starvation, quit their mountain fastnesses 

 to invade the fruitful domains of man. How 

 numerously, as already shown, has to some extent 



been witnessed by myself over an area of several 

 hundred miles. But occasionally the numbers, and 

 consequent depredations of the swarms, far exceed 

 the limits of my experience. On this subject, Bishop 

 Pontoppidan, in his "Natural History of Norway," 

 published in 1753, has the following remarks : " Very 

 prolific must these mischievous creatures be ; as 

 appears from what is seen of them, though, thank 

 God ! very seldom, namely once or twice in twenty 

 years, when they come from their dwelling-places, 

 collected in great flocks of some thousands, like the 

 army of God, to execute His will, namely to punish 

 the neighbouring inhabitants by the destruction of 

 their corn and grass ; for where this flock advances, 

 making a perceptible track on the ground, they cut 

 off all that is green they can come over, until they 

 reach their destined goal, the sea, in which they swim 

 awhile and then drown ; for longer than one year 

 God's faithfulness does not permit this plague — which 

 moreover strikes only here and there in certain 

 districts — to prevail ; for they either, as is said, have 

 an instinctive impulse to drown themselves, or also 

 they succumb to the winter's cold, and the few 

 which are able to survive till spring, die as soon as 

 they eat of the new grass, which does not agree with 

 them as before." This latter statement seems 

 scarcely correct, as a man in Vestfjorddalen, Thele- 

 mark, where I saw them numerously in September 

 1S62, informed me they had begun to arrive during 

 the previous September ; and though the bulk of 

 those which I saw there had probably arrived later, 

 they must, I think, have wintered somewhere on the 

 way, having, in 1862, traced lemmings continuously 

 on my route from the Hardanger district through the 

 Thelemark ; and in 1863, when they had quite dis- 

 appeared from Vestfjorddalen, found a swarm of 

 them farther south. 



(To be continued.) 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



The address (reported in "Science") of the 

 retiring President, Professor J. P. Lesley, at the 

 meeting of the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, held at Ann Arbor last August, 

 presents so many points of interest that it would be 

 well worth quoting largely. Speaking of what he 

 says is technically known among experts as " dead- 

 work," he says, " To describe dead-work is to narrate 

 all those portions of our work which consume the 

 most time, give the most trouble, require the greatest 

 patience and endurance, and seem to produce the 

 most insignificant results. It comprises the collection, 

 collation, comparison and adjustment, the elimination, 

 correction and re-selection, the calculation and re- 

 presentation — in a word, the" entire first, second, and 

 third handling of our data in any branch of human 

 learning, — wholly perfunctory, preparatory, and me- 



