22 THE TUNDRA AND ITS FAUNA 



Grinnell Land, and in the adjacent regions. It is 

 non-migratory, finding food throughout the year by 

 scraping away the thin covering of snow. A markedly 

 social animal, the herds seem capable of defending 

 themselves against the Arctic wolf, which attacks 

 chiefly young stragglers. 



To this short list we should perhaps add the fact that 

 the mammoth occurs in the tundra in the subfossil 

 condition in Asia and also in Alaska. 



Rodents are represented in the tundra by the Arctic 

 hare (Lepus glacialis), which is very abundant in suit- 

 able localities. Even in winter it finds food enough in 

 the grasses which project through the snow. Its 

 greatest enemy is the wolf, which seems to feed largely 

 upon it, but in spite of the abundance of that animal 

 in King Oscar Land the Arctic hare is stated to be very 

 abundant there. Another important rodent of the 

 tundra is the lemming [Myodes torqvMus), which is 

 sometimes extraordinarily abundant. Absent from 

 Spitsbergen, it occurs elsewhere on both sides of the 

 Arctic region. Perhaps because of the paucity of 

 vegetation in its natural habitat, this northern lemming 

 does not show the enormous fertility of the Norwegian 

 form, nor does it seem to migrate in the same fashion. 

 In some regions, as in Nova Zembla, it is, however, 

 remarkably abundant. While the other herbivorous 

 animals named find their food in winter either by 

 scraping away the snow, or by nibbUng the protruding 

 shoots, the lemming, a much smaller animal — ^it is not 

 much bigger than a mouse — lives in winter beneath the 

 snow, making runs and burrows in the underlying 

 ground. When the snow melts in spring these runs 

 appear, ramifying over the surface in all directions. 

 The Norwegian lemming {M. lemmus) is also circum- 



