AN EPISODE ON RATS. 



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where it sleeps and rears its young, of which the female has two or 

 three litters annually, numbering from five to seven in each. It is a 

 most audacious little fellow, and fears neither man nor beast, refusing 

 to give way save on the compulsion of superior force. Travelers speak 

 of having seen them frisking about in hundreds in their native forests, 

 when they dispute the path even with man. From the vantage-ground 

 of the mounds of earth at the entrance to their burrows, they sit on 

 their beam-ends and scan the intruders with comical gravity. If the 

 traveler has a dog with him, unhappily ignorant of the ways of this 

 cool and impudent varmint, he will likely advance with the easy non- 

 chalance of his tribe to smell the odd little animal — which betrays no 

 fear at his approach — to be rewarded by a sharp and trenchant bite on 

 the nose ; a reception so sudden and unexpected that it is ten chances 

 to one against his prosecuting his investigations further, for a dog is 

 too well bred to attack any strange living object which awaits his 

 approach. 



Lemming, or Norway Eat. 



Unlike many of its congeners, the lemming does not provide a 

 sufficient store of food to last it through the long winter, when the 

 earth is covered with snow, and, as it does not hibernate, it is driven 

 to many a hard shift in its struggle for a subsistence. It devours the 

 bark of trees and small twigs, and drives tunnels through the snow, 

 along the surface of the ground, eating every shred of vegetation it 

 meets with. These food-burrows are all connected with a main bur- 

 row, leading to its home in the earth, which is ventilated by a hole 

 driven obliquely through the snow to the surface. These air-shafts 

 guide the arctic fox and the ermine to their whereabouts, and they 

 devour many of them, while kites and other predaceous birds are ever 

 on the watch to pick them up when they emerge upon the surface. 

 The natives of these regions kill and eat them during summer, when 

 they are in good condition ; and a traveled friend of ours, who has 



