28 MR. W. T). CEOTOU ON THE MIGRATTOX A^TD 



rather than go round. They infect the ground, and the cattle 

 perish which taste of the grass which they have touched : nothing 

 stops them, neither fire, torrents, lakes, nor morasses. The greatest 

 rock gives them but a slight check ; they go round it, and then 

 resume their march directly without the least division. If they 

 meet a peasant, they persist in their course, and jump as high 

 as his knees in defence of their progress. They are so fierce 

 as to lay hold of a stick and suff'er themselves to be swung about 

 before they quit their hold. If struck, they turn about and bite, 

 and will make a noise like a dog. Foxes, lynxes, and ermines 

 follow them in great numbers ; and at length they perish either 

 through want of food or by destroying one another, or in some 

 great water, or in the sea. They are the dread of the country ; 

 and in former times spiritual weapons were exerted against them : 

 the priest exorcised them, and had a long form of prayer to arrest 

 the evil. Happily it does not occur frequently, once or twice in 

 twenty years. It seems like a vast colony of emigrants from a 

 nation overstocked — a discharge of animals from the northern 

 hive which once poured out its myriads of human beings upon 

 Southern Europe. They do not form any magazine for winter 

 provision ; by which improvidence, it seems, they are compelled to 

 make their summer migrations in certain years, urged by hunger. 

 They are not poisonous, as vulgarly reported ; for they are 

 often eaten by the Laplanders, who compare their flesh to that 

 of squirrels. 



Here I must enter a protest ; for having tasted many animals, 

 I should prefer even the " cold missionary " of Sydney Smith to 

 a lemming ragout. However, tastes differ. I once made a 

 savoury mess of stewed ermines, and invited my Norwegian guide 

 and friend to partake of it. He gently and politely said, " I 

 have breakfasted," but immediately walked out and returned 

 without that most necessary meal. 



Prof. ISTewton *, writing on the migration of birds, distinguishes 

 as " partial migrants " such species as the woodcock, of which only 

 the majority of individuals migrate. The lemmings must belong 

 to this class, since although none of their wandering hosts return, 

 it must be assumed, even if it be difiicult of proof, that some re- 

 main at home to supply material for future emigrants. While 

 a deficiency of food explains the departure, it does not, as Prof. 

 Newton rightly remarks, account for the return of those birds 

 * Encycl. Brit. 9tli ed. (1875) yol. iii. p. 765. 



