86 SUICIDE. 



the coast they were visible I cannot say, but believe they 

 were seen the whole way between Sundsvall and Umea, a 

 distance of some two hundred miles. Their number must be 

 reckoned by millions." 



It is a popular notion, and one not confined solely to 

 Scandinavia, that when the lemmings arrive at the coast, to 

 which in many instances their course would seem to be 

 directed, the bulk of them at once take to the water, and, 

 still following the specific direction marked out for them- 

 selves at starting from their native mountains, swim straight 

 out to sea until their strength fails them, when they perish. 

 But this I take to be fallacious. Fishermen on the coast, 

 it is true, may have occasionally seen them breasting the 

 waves, and also large spaces of the sea covered with their 

 dead carcases ; but in spite of all this, it is not credible to 

 me that when an army of lemmings thus launches forth 

 on the wide ocean, it is with the intention of committing 

 suicide. To me it seems clear, that unless darkness inter- 

 venes, they at all times, before taking to the water, see land 

 of some kind an island or the opposite side of a fjord, 

 as the case may be in the offing ; but the distance 

 proving too great for their powers, they are in consequence 

 drowned. 



On the occasion of their migrations, the lemmings would 

 always seem to reach the land of promise that I mean where 

 they propose to winter, some time prior to the setting in of 

 the frost ; for during the winter months they always, I 

 believe, discontinue their wanderings, and remain stationary 

 till the spring. When, however, that season arrives, the 

 snow has disappeared from the ground, and the temperature 



