196 ANIMALS OF THE 



rent with respect to the Laplanders, who lead a 

 vagrant life, and who, like the lemings them- 

 selves, if their provisions be destroyed in one 

 part of the country, can easily retire to another. 

 These are never so happy as when an army of 

 lemings come down amongst them ; for then 

 they feast upon their flesh, which, though horrid 

 food, and which though even dogs and cats are 

 known to detest, these little savages esteem very 

 good eating, and devour greedily. They are glad 

 of their arrival also upon another account, for 

 they always expect a great plenty of game the 

 year following, among those fields which the 

 lemings have destroyed. 



THE MOLE. 



To these minute animals of the rat kind, a 

 great part of whose lives is passed in holes under 

 ground, I will subjoin one little animal more, no 

 way resembling the rat, except that its whole 

 life is spent there. As we have seen some qua- 

 drupeds formed to crop the surface of the fields, 

 and others to live upon the tops of trees, so the 

 mole is formed to live wholly under the earth, as 

 if nature meant that no place should be left en- 

 tirely untenanted. Were we from our own sensa- 

 tions to pronounce upon the life of a quadruped 

 that was never to appear above ground, but was 

 always condemned to hunt for its prey under- 

 neath j obliged, whenever it removed from one 



