THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 325 



by the breatli of the zephyr, thus reaches the opposite 

 bank.^ 



The pretty mammals of Lapland, the lemmings, Avhich 

 are not much lai'ger than mice, accomplish still more 

 extraordinary and daring migrations. At a certain period 

 of the year these adventurers, urged by a mysterious 

 instinct, descend from the mountains in troops so numer- 

 ous that over considerable spaces of country the face of 

 the land is absolutely covered by the compact moving- 

 army. Always advancing without halt or pause, no ob- 

 stacle checks them; neither rivers, lakes, nor arms of the 

 sea: a hundred enemies decimate them, a hundred dangers 

 threaten them, but nothing stays their course; the long 

 living lines formed by their troops advance just the same 

 towards the spot they fatally wish to reach. 



Astonished at the sudden irruption of these innumer- 

 able legions of rodents which devastate everything in their 

 path, the rude inhabitants of the North believe that this 

 plague falls from heaven. It is particularly when a pre- 

 mature winter produces a dearth in the high-lying districts 

 that the lemmings reach the lower lands. 



These emigrants are all animated with an amount of 



^ Linnasus himself seems to believe in this remarkable migration of squirrels. 

 Regnard observed the fact during liis travels in Lapland. "When it is necessary," 

 he says, "to pass some lake or river, as hapjjeus at every step in Lapland, these 

 little animals take the bai-k of a pine or birch tree, which they drag to the brink 

 of the water, they then set themselves upon it and abandon themselves to the 

 mercy of the wind, erecting their tails like sails, until the wind, becoming stronger, 

 overturns both the ship and the ])ilot. This shipwreck, wliich very often over- 

 whelms 3000 or 4000 vessels, generally brings an extraordinary influx of wealth 

 to those Laplanders who find the remains on the shore, and who, if the little 

 animals have not been too long on the sand, make use of them for food, &c. 

 Many of these animals make a successful voyage and airive safe in harbour, 

 provided the wind be favourable and not strong enough to raise any waves, which 

 need not be violent in order to engulf these little craft. This singular perfoilti- 

 ance might be considered as a fable if I had not witnessed it myself." — Kegnard, 

 Voyage en Lapponie. Paris, 1820, p. 202. 



