THE NORWEGIAN LEMMING AND ITS MIGRATIONS. 
145 
discharge of animals from the northern hive which once poured 
forth its myriads of human beings upon Southern Europe. They 
do not form any magazine for winter provision, by which im- 
providence, it seems, they are compelled to make their summer 
migration in certain years, urged by hunger. They are not 
poisonous, as vulgarly reported, for they are often eaten by the 
Laplanders, who compare their flesh to that of squirrels.” 
M. Guyon disposes of the theory that these migrations are 
influenced by approaching severe weather, since the one wit- 
nessed by himself took place in the spring; also the super- 
abundance of food during the previous autumn precluded all 
idea of starvation. He therefore adopts a third view, that 
excessive multiplication in certain years necessitates emigration, 
and that this follows a descending course, like the mountain 
streams, till at length the ocean is reached. Mr. R. Collett, a 
Norwegian naturalist, writes that in November, 1868, a ship 
sailed for fifteen hours through a swarm of lemmings, which 
extended as far over the Trondhjems-fjord as the eye could 
reach. 
I will now relate my own experience of the lemming during 
three migrations in Norway, and in a state of captivity in 
England. The situation of Heimdalen, where I reside during 
the summer months, is peculiarly well suited for observation 
of their migrations, lying as it does at an elevation of 3,000 
feet, and immediately under the highest mountains in Scan- 
dinavia, and yet, excepting during migration, I have never seen 
or been able to procure a specimen. It was in the autumn 
of 1867 that I first heard the peculiar cry of the lemming, 
guided by which I soon found the pretty animal backed up by 
a stone, against which it incessantly jerked its body in pas- 
sionate leaps of rage, all the while uttering a shrill note of 
defiance. The black, beadlike eyes seemed starting from their 
sockets, and the teeth shone white in the sunlight. I hastily 
snatched at the savage little creature, but it sprang completely 
round, fastened its teeth sharply in my hand, and taking advan- 
tage of my surprise escaped under a large stone, whence I could 
not dislodge it. A Norwegian friend who accompanied me by 
no means shared my feelings of satisfaction at the sight of a 
lemming. “We shall have a severe winter and no grass next 
spring owing to those children of Satan ! ” was his comment on 
the event. However, it was many a month before I saw another, 
then, on lifting a flat stone I found six in a nest of dried 
grass, blind, and apparently but just born. In a few days the 
whole fjeld became swarming with these pretty voles ; at the 
same time white and blue foxes made their appearance, and 
snowy owls and many species of hawks became abundant. My 
dogs, too, were annoyed by the rash courage of the new comers, 
