Abstract
WITH all our recent knowledge of the Northern Fauna, and the ample opportunities of the Scandinavian naturalists, the animal in question still seems to have evaded a thorough scrutiny and complete solution of the why and wherefore of its remarkable migrations. Ten consecutive summers spent in Norway have led Mr. W. Duppa Crotch,1 in studying the creature, to propound a novel view as to the impetus of its recurrent irruptions. Passing by the traditional lore respecting its sudden appearance in myriads, he discountenances the later informed writers' explanation of hunger, or of the approach of severe weather, being the cause. Even “survival of the fittest,” with its cogent subsidiary clauses, according to our author, fails to serve as a substantial reason, for, as he observes, none of the travellers survive. His own theory is a very simple one. The bands of migrants always head westward, and at last, in diminished numbers, perish in the sea. In one well authenticated instance (Collet), a ship sailed for fifteen minutes through a swarm, the water being literally alive with them far as the eye could reach. This migratory instinct, Mr. Crotch assumes, is hereditary, their progenitors in the good old times of geological age having sojourned in a land of plenty, now submerged beneath the Atlantic. According to him the migration is not all completed in one year, as formerly supposed, nor do they, as stated, form processions and cut their way through obstacles; but breeding several times in the season, they gather in batches, and at intervals make a move westward. Their pugnacity, he states, is astonishing, and the approach of any animal, or even the shadow of a cloud, arouses the anger of this small creature like a guinea-pig, and they back against a stone or rock uttering shrill defiance. Our author found, in most examples, a bare patch on the rump, due to their rubbing against the said buttress of support when at bay. He wonders why a bare patch, and not a callosity, should not result from this innate, apparently hereditary habit. They cross wide lakes by swimming, but when in the water they are easily frightened, and lose all idea of direction, and are inevitably drowned by a slight ruffling of the surface. It seems the reindeer trample them under foot whenever the chance may occur, and other enemies in the shape of hovering rapacious birds and small carnivora thin the numbers considerably as the Lemmings in force drive westward. The writer also called attention to the fact that fossil remains of the Lemming exist in England, as an evidence that the animal had penetrated hither before this island was severed from the continent. The subject altogether is a most interesting and suggestive one, well worthy of the investigation and observation of northern sojourners. Even the recent views of Mr. Crotch, it seems, does not set the whole question at rest. There possibly may be some physical or physiological reason underneath; at all events it is certainly remarkable how a settled westward course is that chosen, calling to mind the similar direction which races of men are assumed to follow.
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Migration and Habits of the Norwegian Lemming . Nature 14, 113 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/014113a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/014113a0