494 THE PHILOSOPHY 



Savages, as long as their ftore of food remains unexliaufled, con- 

 tinue in a liftlefs inadive (late. They exhauft many days fitting in 

 perfect indolence, and feem not to be prompted by any motives of 

 curiofity. They have not a conception of a man's walking either 

 for amufement or exercife. But, when their provifions begin to 

 fail, an aftonilLing reverfe takes place. They then roufe as from a 

 profound fleep. In queft of wild beads, birds, and filhes, they mi- 

 grate to immenfe diftances, exert the greateft feats of adivity, and 

 undergo incredible hatdfhips and fatigue. After acquiring a ftore 

 of provifions, they return to their wonted haunts, and remain inac- 

 tive till their food again begins to fail. 



Quadrupeds llkewlfe perform partial migrations. At the approach 

 of winter, the ft:ag, the rein-deer, and the roebuck, leave the tops of 

 the lofty mountains, and come down to the plains and copfes. Their 

 chief obje(£l:s, in thefe flittings, are food and fhelter. When fummer 

 commences, they are harrafled with different fpecies of winged in- 

 fers, and, to avoid thefe enemies, they regain the fummits of the 

 mountains, where the cold and the heighth of the fituation protect 

 them from the attacks of the flies. In Norway, and the mere nor- 

 thern regions of Europe, the oxen, during the winter, migrate to 

 the (hores of the fea, where they feed upon fea-plants and the bones 

 of fifhes ; and Pontoppidan remarks, that the cattle know by inftindt 

 when the tide retires, and leaves thefe articles of food upon the 

 fliore. In Orkney and Shetland, the fheep in winter, for the fame 

 purpofes, uniformly repair to the Ihore at the ebbing of the tides. 

 Rats, particulaily thofe of the northern regions of Europe, appear, 

 from time to time, in fuch myriads, that the inhabitants of Norway 

 and Lapland imagine the animals fall from heaven. The celebrated 

 Linnaeus, who paid great attention to the oeconomy of thefe migra- 

 ting rats, remarked, that thfy appeared in Sweden periodically 

 every eighteen or twenty years. When about to migrate, they leave 



their 



