DR. BREHM ON THE LEMMING 



able or apparently insurmountable. This perseverance, 

 however, leads to nothing ; for from these exodus no 

 lemming ever returns. Like the Crusaders of old, they 

 die from various causes on their travels. From falling 

 into water, from fights with one another, and a vast 

 quantity of them fall a prey to wolves and gluttons, 

 buzzards and ravens, who haunt their route and take 

 abundant toll of the migrants. Occasionally during a 

 lemming year a fever arises along the route among the 

 human inhabitants, which is called lemming fever. This 

 is due to the numerous putrefying corpses left along the 

 way, and is a testimony to their multitudes. The 

 rapidity with which lemmings multiply is well put by 

 Dr. Brehm, who says, " All the young of the first litter 

 of the various lemming females thrive, and six weeks 

 later at the most these also multiply. Meanwhile the 

 parents have brought forth a second and a third litter, 

 and these in their turn bring forth young." In past 

 times lemmings lived in this country, and the interesting 

 observation has been lately made of quite fresh-looking 

 skeletons, with skins attached, in Portugal. It seems 

 possible that lemmings still lurk among the fastnesses of 

 the Iberian peninsula. 



THE CAPYBARA 



Apart from the mysterious, and until this year almost 

 fabulous Dinomys, of which the first and only example 

 known until lately was met with casually wandering 

 round the courtyard of a house in a remote Peruvian 

 town, without visible means of subsistence or ascertain- 

 able residence, the capybara, or carpincho, is the largest 

 existing rodent. There was once upon a time literally 

 " when pigs were swine," for the Suise were of a general- 

 ized type, and could be better called swine than pig, 

 which denotes the Chinese domestic variety a rodent 



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