452 Prof. J. Steenstrup on the Character of the 



the dental system ; and even if a lemming may exceptionally 

 feed on berries, yet these can never be its chief food. In the 

 second place, there is the statement that the tails of these 

 little sailors hang down in the water, nay, that they even 

 perform their little voyage by using their tails as oars, wdiilst 

 they sit upon the cowdung around the little heap of berries 

 placed in the middle. But it is one of the general characters 

 of an Arvicoline or lemming to have a short, stout body, 

 and a very short tail ; and as regards the species which 

 Murray thinks must most probably be referred to here, Myodes 

 grosnkmdiciis or M. hudsonius, I need only refer to the well- 

 known figures of this animal in Schreber's ' Saugethiere,' 

 vol. iv. tab. 194—196. Both figures and text indicate the tail 

 as so short (altogether only a few lines long) that it scarcely 

 reaches beyond the body, not to speak of the margins of the 

 rafts ; and the animals certainly could not row the rafts with 

 their tails. In the third place, the animal's whole mode of 

 life is opposed to it ; for, although I cannot lay very much 

 stress upon the fact that one would rather expect the de- 

 scribed position to be that of a mouse than of an Arvicoline 

 or lemming, it may nevertheless be decidedly maintained that 

 the Icelanders, who are so well acquainted and familiar with 

 house-mice, could not for a single moment see in such short, 

 stout Arvicolines, or, still more, lemmings, furnished with 

 great fossorial claws, such a likeness to house-mice that they 

 would mistake them for the latter. I should even strongly 

 doubt, from my knowledge of the Icelanders, that they would 

 give such different animals the same name. 



I have already called attention to the misunderstanding 

 which has taken place with regard to the colour given 

 in English as nihite ; it will be seen that Murray has built 

 further upon this misunderstanding, and supposed that by it 

 must have been meant either animals that were albinoes, or 

 animals in a white winter dress ; and in this case it would be 

 most natural to think of the lemmings. Murray remarks 

 correctly that Olafsen cannot have meant isolated albino in- 

 dividuals, as his " whitish " colour is ascribed to this mouse 

 generally ; but it has escaped him that Olafsen cannot any 

 more have intended animals in a winter dress, as the collect- 

 ing-journeys which he describes (no less than those of which 

 Madame Benedictson had been a witness) must have occurred 

 in the fine season ! 



If therefore, for the reasons given, it is not possible to 

 make the above-mentioned description agree with the liabits 

 and mode of life of tlie lemmings, as the sketch decidedly 

 calls up the picture of a true mouse, there remains the next 



