Quadrupeds. 3169 



in which they sometimes migrate, and the excessive injury they do at 

 such times by eating up everything before them, that they have be- 

 come the themes of so many wild tales, and the sources of so much 

 superstitious as well as natural dread to the Norwegians. Accounts 

 seem to vary as to the frequency of these migrations ; some said they 

 invariably moved every third year ; others (and amongst these, my 

 friend and companion the Norwegian officer, on whose accurate 

 knowledge of the Natural History of his country I place great faith) 

 assured me that the migrations took place about every seven years: the 

 probability being that they do not follow any prescribed rule as to 

 time, but migrate as an increase of their numbers or want of food may 

 prompt them. Certain however it is, that when they do so migrate, 

 they become a very great plague to the inhabitants of that district, for 

 so innumerable are they, in such countless myriads do they advance, 

 that they destroy everything before them ; and when the overwhelm- 

 ing mass has gone by, the luckless farmer looks in vain for the crops 

 on which his subsistence depends ; for the scourge of lemmings has 

 as completely destroyed them, as did a similar plague of locusts in the 

 land of Egypt in olden time. It is curious that they always advance 

 southwards, invariably go straight forwards, and never return. They 

 never go out of the course they have taken, but plunge into the lakes 

 and rivers, and over the rocks, that come in their way, and multitudes 

 are so destroyed, but what becomes of the main body of this vast army 

 no one knows. They march principally by night, and so suddenly and 

 unexpectedly that it was generally believed, and is still firmly upheld 

 by many, that they dropped from the clouds. Undoubtedly " the 

 plague of lemmings," as I have heard it called by the inhabitants, is 

 one of the greatest scourges to which Norway is subject. I was for- 

 tunate in seeing these curious creatures on two occasions. I met with 

 them sparingly on the Sogne Fjeld, and in great numbers on the Fille 

 Fjeld: in the latter place they abounded to such a degree that 1 could 

 count thirty within a hundred yards: the whole mountain seemed alive 

 with them, and the little black lake at the summit was quite fringed 

 with their dead bodies ; so that I could understand something of the 

 almost incredible numbers said to congregate at their migrations, when 

 the dense populations of these mountains join their forces together for 

 a move to the South. 



The Squirrel, {Sciurus vulgaris). I know nothing more elegant 



than the motions of these active little fellows, as they skip from branch 



to branch, or run along the boughs, or up and down the trunks of 



trees, and traverse considerable distances without touching the earth. 



ix. 2 c 



