326 SHORT STALKS 



edges and cliffs, Init I suppose the level is nowhere less 

 than three thousand, or more than six thousand feet, and 

 for the most part the outlines are round and tame. In 

 the sheltered places a few patches of grass are found, and 

 cows are brought up for a few weeks in the year, and 

 tended by a solitary girl. 



The hio'h field is sinoularlv barren of life and the 

 reindeer and ptarmigan have it almost to themselves. 

 The chief exception to this rule is the little lem- 

 ming, clad, like the Pope's Guard, in livery of yellow 

 and black. These miniature l)lunt-headed marmots — 

 they are only al)Out four or five inches long, including 

 their stumpy tails — as though conscious of the repro- 

 ductiveness of their race, are ready to sacrifice their tiny 

 individual lives with wanton courage. As you walk 

 the moor, a chirp crescendo, full of anger and defiance, 

 attracts your attention. Looking about, you will perceive 

 this tiny David, bolt ujiright, and challenging Goliath. 

 Very likely he will be standing by his hole, but he will 

 scorn to fly from dog or man. I have known them thus 

 on a high road to contest the way with an advancing cart, 

 until the wheel crushed the fearless little soul. They vary 

 enormously in numbers in different seasons, and their 

 sudden appearance in hordes accounts for the super- 

 stitions anent them, to which old writers have given 

 currency ; cjj. of their fall from the clouds which Olaus 

 Magnus accounts for, in that " like frogs and other small 

 creatures they may in tlieir embryos be attracted to the 

 clouds, and, being then come to maturity, may drop 

 from them." 



Tlieir inordinate increase in certain years, and the 



