LEMING. 
Ermines, who follow them in great numbers. 
At length they perish : either through want of 
food; or. by destroying one another; or in 
some great water, or in the sea. They are the 
dread of the country. In former times spiri- 
tual weapons were exerted against them: the 
priest exorcised ; and had a long form of praver 
to avert the evil, the whole of which is pre- 
served by Wormius. It was once seriously 
believed, that these animals were generated in 
the clouds, and fell in showers on the ground. 
Happily, it does not occur frequently ; once or 
twice in twenty years. It seems like a vast co- 
lony of emigrants, from a nation over-stocked : 
a discharge of animals from the great Northern 
hive, that once poured out it's' myriads of hu- 
man creatures on Southern Europe. Where 
the head- quarters of these quadrupeds are, is 
not very certainly known : Linnasus says, the 
Norwegian and Lapland Alps; Pontoppidan 
seems to think, that Kollens Rock, which di- 
vides Nordland from Sweden, is their native ! 
place: but, wherever they come from, none I 
return ; their course is predestinated, and they I 
pursue their fate 1" 
