158 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



provided for them in the ranks of the caravan ; 

 the Great Snowy Owl is on these occasions 

 alone found in its best condition : even such 

 pacific animals as Reindeer and Goats develop 

 ferocity in presence of the Lemming, stamping 

 them to death, and, according to some autho- 

 rities, actually devouring them. All this makes 

 it hard enough to understand what benefit this 

 migration brings to the migrants, but it is all 

 as nothing with the final issue. Steering ever 

 west, the Lemmings arrive at last atthe shores 

 of the Atlantic. This obstacle they treat like 

 the others. On the first calm day they plunge 

 into the sea and the whole multitude perishes 

 to its last member, the front of the host still 

 pointing to the west. As Mr Romanes * tells 

 us : " 6 No faint heart lingers on the way, and 

 no survivor returns to the mountains.' So 

 vast are the numbers thus immolated that in 

 November 1868 a ship sailed for fifteen hours 

 through a swarm of swimming Lemmings, "t 

 The habits described for the two kinds of 

 insects were obviously beneficial for themselves 

 and for their race; those of the eels we may 

 assume are also at least not harmful ; those 

 of the Lemming are simply annihilative, and 

 much ingenuity has been shown, not, it must 



* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 283. 

 t Gerard, op. cif., p. 126. 



