78 LEMMIN'G RAT. 



dric, obtuse^ and covered with strong hairs, dis- 

 posed like those of a pencil at the tip. 



The natural or general residence of the Lem- 

 ming is in the Alpine or mountainous parts of 

 Lapland and Norway, from which tracts, at par- 

 ticular but uncertain periods^ it descends into the 

 plains below^ in immense troops, and by its incre- 

 dible numbers becomes a temporary scourge to 

 the country ; devouring the grain and herbage, 

 and committing devastations equal to those caused 

 by an army of locusts. These migrations of the 

 Lemming seldom happen oftener than once in 

 ten years, and in some districts still less frequently, 

 and are supposed to arise from an unusual multi- 

 plication of the animals in the mountainous parts 

 they inhabit, together with a defect of food; and, 

 perhaps, a kind of instinctive prescience of unfa- 

 vourable seasons ; and it is observable that their 

 chief migrations are made in the autumn of such 

 years as are followed by a very severe winter. 

 The inclination, or instinctive faculty which in- 

 duces them, with one consent, to assemble from a 

 whole region, collect themselves into an army, and 

 descend from the mountains into the neighbour- 

 ing plains, in the form of a firm phalanx, moving 

 on in a strait line, resolutely surmounting every 

 obstacle, and undismayed by every danger, cannot 

 be contemplated v/ithout astonishment. All who 

 have written on the subject agree that they pro- 

 ceed in a direct course, so that the ground along 

 which they have passed appears at a distance as 



