William Duppa Crotch

“ No doubt, therefore, they commit themselves to the Atlantic in the belief that it is as passable as those lakes and fjords which they have already successfully dared, and that beyond its waves lies a land which they are never destined to reach.
The submerged continent of Lemuria, in what is now the Indian Ocean, is considered to afford an explanation of many difficulties in the distribution of organic life, and I think the existence of a Miocene Atlantis will be found to have a strong elucidative bearing on subjects of greater interest than the migration of the lemming. ”

“ In a few days the whole field 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, which would jump at their noses even when slowly drawing on game, so that they never spared a lemming, though they never ate them till last year, when I observed that they would eat their heads only, rejecting the body, although they devoured the common field-mouse to the end of his tail. ”

“ It appears quite as probable that the impetus of migration toward this lost continent should be retained as that a dog should turn round before lying down on a rug, merely because his ancestors found it necessary thus to hollow out a couch in the long grass. ”

“ If they meet a peasant they persist in their course, and jump as high as his knees in defense of their progress. They are so fierce as to lay hold of a stick and suffer themselves to be swung about before they quit their hold. ”

“ Let us suppose that these birds were partial migrants—only that is, that a remnant remained with us after the departure of the main body—and further suppose that the continent of Africa were to become submerged, would not many generations of swallows still follow their inherited migratory instincts, and seek the land of their ancestors through the new waste of waters, while the remaining stock, unimpeded by competition, would sooner or later, according to the seasons, recruit the ranks for a new exodus? ”

“ Herr Palmén, indeed, says, "Experience guides migration, and the older migrants guide the younger," like one of Mr. Cook's personally-conducted tours. This obviously cannot be the case with the lemmings.
It is now generally admitted that instinct is merely inherited experience, and is, therefore, primarily calculated to benefit the species, unless, indeed, circumstances have changed meanwhile more rapidly than the structures to which the phenomena of instinct are due. ”

“ There are several species of lemming, easily recognizable, and with well-marked geographical range; but it is to the Scandinavian species only that the following old description applies: "It lives on the shoots of the dwarf-birch, reindeer lichens, and other mosses; it hisses and bites; in winter it runs under the snow; and about every tenth year, especially before an extremely severe winter, the whole army of animals, in the autumn and at night, migrates in a direct line." ”

“ The swifts, which stay but a short time with us, remain in Norway barely long enough to rear their young before returning to Africa. It is difficult, in fact, to find a parallel case to that of the lemmings. The nearest approach, perhaps, is afforded by the strange immigration of Pallas's sand-grouse in 1863, when a species whose home is on the Tartar steppes journeyed on in considerable numbers to the most western shores of Europe, and very probably many perished, like the lemmings, in the waves of the Atlantic. ”

“ In this country we fail to conceive how much active life goes on beneath the snow, which in more northern latitudes forms a warm roof to numerous birds, quadrupeds, and insects, which are thus enabled to secure an otherwise impossible sustenance. At the same time, as I have already noticed, a fearful struggle for existence is carried on during the long autumnal nights, before the snow has become a protection rather than a new source of danger to all save predaceous animals. ”

“ At all events, if it can be shown that land existed in former ages where the North Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found for these apparently suicidal migrations, but also a strong collateral proof that what we call instincts are but the blind and sometimes even prejudicial inheritance of previously-acquired experience.—Popular Science Review. ”

“ Happily it does not occur frequently—once or twice only in twenty years. It seems like a vast colony of emigrants from a nation overstocked, a discharge of animals from the northern hive which once poured forth its myriads of human beings upon Southern Europe. ”

“ It has also been suggested that the course taken by the lemmings follows the natural declivities of the country, but a reference to the maps will show that in that case nearly all the Norwegian migrations should take a southerly route, which is by no means the case. On the contrary, westward at Heimdalen means across a rapid river, over a wide lake, and up a steep, rocky, and snowy mountain, and this is the course which is followed. Now, this ends eventually in the ocean, and thus we are again landed at the question from which we set out. ”

“ They certainly do not exist in my neighborhood during the intervals of migrations; and the Kjölen range was probably selected as their habitat, not because it was proved to be so, but because so little is known about it at all. The answer to the second question is certain: They go to the sea. Those on the east of the backbone of Norway go to the Gulf of Bothnia, and those on the west to the Atlantic Ocean (Fig. 4) , and out of eighteen migrations which have been investigated, one only, and that very doubtful, is reported ”

“ If struck they turn about and bite, and will make a noise like a dog. Foxes, lynxes, and ermines, follow them in great numbers, and at length they perish, either through want of food or by destroying one another, or in some great water, or in the sea. ”

“ They infect the ground, and the cattle perish which taste of the grass they have touched; nothing stops them—neither fire, torrents, lakes, nor morasses. The greatest rock gives them but a slight check ”