ANIMALS. 31-.'{ 



are sometimes seen cliiubiiig up on the other side. If they are 

 interrupted by a boat across a river while they are swimming, 

 they never attempt to swim round it, but mount directly up its 

 sides ; and the boatmen, who know how vain resistance in such 

 a case would be, calmly suffer the living torrent to pass over, 

 which it does without further damage. If they meet with a 

 stack of hay or com that interrupts their passage, instead of go- 

 ing over it, they gnaw their way through ; if they are stopped by 

 a house in their com-se, if they cannot get through it, they con- 

 tinue there till they die. It is happy, however, for mankind, 

 that they eat nothing that is prepared for human subsistence ; 

 they never enter a house to destroy the provisions, but are con- 

 tented with eating every root and vegetable that they meet. If 

 they happen to pass through a meadow, they destroy it in a very 

 short time, and give it an appearance of being burned up and 

 strewed with ashes. If they are interrupted in their course, and 

 a man should imprudently venture to attack one of them, the 

 little animal is no way intimidated by the disparity of strength, 

 but furiously flies up at its opponent, and barking somewhat like 

 a puppy, wherever it fastens does not easily quit the hold. If 

 at last the leader be forced out of its line, which it defends as 

 long as it can, and separated from the rest of its kind, it sets up 

 a plaintive cry, different from that of anger, and, as some pretend 

 to say, gives itself a voluntary death, by hanging itself on the fork 

 of a tree. 



An enemy so numerous and destructive would quickly render 

 the countries where they appear utterly uninhabitable, did it not 

 fortunately happen, that the same rapacity that animates them 

 to destroy the labours of mankind, at last impels them to destroy 

 and devour each other.' After committing incredible devasta- 

 tions, they are at last seen to separate into two armies, opposed 

 with deadly hatred, along the coast of the larger lakes and rivers. 

 The Laplanders, who observe them thus drawn up to fight, instead 

 of considering their mutual animosities as a happy riddance of 

 the most dreadful pest, form ominous prognostics from the man- 

 ner of their arrangement. They consider their combats as a 

 presage of war, and expect an invasion from the Russians or the 

 Swedes, as the sides next those kingdoms happen to conquer. 



I Uictionnaire Raisonnee, vol. ii. p. 610. 



