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ESSEN
57
But there is an animal very like a Mouse (the Lemming) which does
make .extensive burrows. … It is provided with powerful sickle-shaped claws
specially adapted for digging, and although I have not met with any account
of the plan on which their burrows are constructed”), there is abundant
evidence that they do make them, Captain Mc’ Clintock says in his diary
of the expedition of the «Fox»: — «Hare-tracks are pretty common along
the shore, and upon the sides of steep hills; they make burrows under the
snow, but we have never found them in the earth like those of the Fox
. and Lemming.» Von Baer says that in Nova Zembla gentle declivities are
frequently burrowed through in every direction by them. In fact, the habit
is notorious. É |
Another point in favour of the Iceland , animal being a Lemming is,
that Olufsen speaks of it as often white. Now although the Mus sylvaticus
sometimes may be found white, when such a thing occurs it is only a
case of albinism, and rare. But the Lemming in America is said regu-
larly to become white in winter, although not so completely so as the
Weasels. Both in Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla a little white animal has
been observed. MM. Pachtissow and Ziwolka, during their winter stay in Nova
Zembla, saw a little white animal in their hut which they, in their jour-
nal, call a Mouse. According to Mr. Ziwolka it was larger thann a common
domestic Mouse, and therefore could mot have been a white individual of
that species. It was doubtless a Lemming. According to Von Baer there
åre two species of Lemming found in Nova Zembla, one of which he "con-
sidered. identical with the Myodes Hudsonius.
As the Lemming is ån Arctic animal, it must pass a longer night
of winter than ordinary torpidity could survive. Some-arrangement for a
winter supply is therefore plainly necessary, and it is scarcely possible to
conceive anything better adapted to the purpose than that described by
Henderson.
Ål: have, therefore, no doubt in my own mind that the economic Mouse
of Iceland is a Lemming; and as Greenland -is the nearest point where
Lemmings have been found, I think it a fair conjecture, until rebutted by
direet evidence, that the species found there is the American Lemming
Myodes Hudsonius.»
”) John Wolley omtaler kun simple Gange i Græsset paa Jordover-
fladen og Huller paa Siden af Tuerne, i hvilke de bosætte sig og uden-
for hvilke Exerementerne findes i støre Dynger. Skand. Naturf. Måde
1863. S. 217 o. flg.
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