The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1896-03-18
The aa1ieha aai1u EAGLE aaedesau 7ine g arch s 1895

promptly rises upon his hind legs, snap
ping and shrieking, fairly spelling for
a fight In a word, there is not in the
brute creation more typical lingo
for not only does this palm-long war
rior enthusiastically challenge man and
beast. regardless of size and intentions
but. incredible as it may seem, the very
shadow of cloud passing before the
sun fills his soul with Indignation and
wrath, and, putting his back against
a stone, he rises in the majesty Of his
full five inches, and yelps defiance at tn
skies.
Hordes of foxes, stoats, Iynxes, YEA
Zels, and ernines, and many eagles,
buZZards, hawks, snowy owls, and 9TH
er birds of prey follow in the train OF
a lemming migration, devouring great
numbers. Disease, drowning, and civil
brofls carry off hosts of others. Hum
anity does its best to thin the mass,
and the very cows and reindeer forget
their peaceful characters and attack
Jennings upon sight with the greatest
ferociIy, stamping them 10 death and
sometimes even eating them. ct, IN
spite of all these ravages, during the
height of the migration and before the
head Of the column has reached, in its
the open sea, no diminution Of the
swarms is perceptible, so constantly
do endorsements descend from the
plateaus, and so excessively do the mi
orators breed.
1t is not to be supposed however, that
the column is always in progress DC
casiOnalIy it stops and infests one dis
trict for a twelve-month or even for two
years; though three years, at the ut
most, from the beginning Of the mlgra-
ton sees the death of all concerned,
either inSthe North Sea or N the Bal
tic. according to the trend of the wa
tershed.
In an average visitation Of this sort
the pest is most numerous in late sum-
mer thence Iessening gradually to the
second summer, when the district IS
clear again. AIyriads die in the course
of the winter from an epizootic, the
prcportionate mortality being greater
the greater the size of the swarm. Cen
/ orally speaking, whether migrating or
| encamped, they stay in hiding during
| the daytime, creeping under stones or,
!. in the winter. burOwing under the snow
| where they make long tunnels close to
| the ground, marked at intervals with
air-shafts driven upwards to the sur
| lace buL dL a4A AAUu-S many VI NAA~AAA
are in sight, and as soon as night falls
! they begin to range with freedom and
DISTINGUISHED indiscrimina ton.
For not only are the cattle in the
stalls driven to frenzy by their visits
| but the people sleeping in the farm
| houses awaken to find their very beds
! invaded, and in the morning the smooth
waters of the or the ford, as the case
may be are dotted with hundreds of
mushroom-like objects, the cOrpses of
! JENNINGS who fancied a nocturnal
swim though they are VIGOROUSLY bad
swimmers except on quiet sea, and go
| to the bottom directly a breeze dis
| turbs the surface.
To understand something of what ii
means to these up-cOuntry Norwegian
| peasants to have several millions of
| herb-cating rodents quartered upon
them for a term Of years, 6ne must re-
member, first, that the peasants whole
wealth consists in live stock, and sec
| ond, that the scanty soil Of the noun
| tains can never be coaxed into yielding
more than a niggardly supply of fodder
50 that no one has ever had any to
spare, and even the most fruitful farm
stores up all their vegeta ble-tops and
even crop the leaves from the birch
|
OF hay.
| In lenming yearS-Whlch recur IN
| given district at irregular intervals Of
from five to twenty years, and which
have afflicted every part of Norway,
at one time or another-the pest at
appears at haymakiGg time. promptly
destroying the crops. Or if the LEM
mings descend after the hay has been
| stacked, they will secure their more
! than tithes by gnawing away the under
| layers and spelling large part of the
whole. Ever green grounding falls
prey to their teeth. On the saeterS
they eat away the grass to the very
roots, and in the cultivated fields they
| bare the earth even of stubble grain.
The cattle have almost nothing left
| to feed upon, and what meagre herbage
! remains to them seems to be in some
| way infected by the Jennings touch,
50 that cows that eat il sicken. In the
winter the barns are particularly inva-
| ded, the stored fodder is tainted, and
matters go from bad to worse. The
live stock comes down with all manner
Of ailments, which, with starvation ra-
tions, go near to destroying it altogeth-
er. There is much sickness al the
same time among men, for Jennings
are constantly drowning in lakes and
| wells whence drinking-water is taken,
and the decomposition of their bodies
poisons the water and produces in those
who drink it a disease locally known
| as lemming fever.
One theory earnestly defended before
the Linnaean Society, deserves a notice
! among Lemmingiana: Mr.. Crotch be-
| lieves that their invariable, unwaver-
ing march from the mountains straight
| into the sea is indubitably the result
Of an instinct inherited from Miocene
ancestors in the habit of migrating, for
a change of scene, to the lost Atlantis
! which. according to Mr.. Crotch, connec-
| ted Norway with Greenland. However
the fact that these small fanatics some
times start down the opposite water
! shed and proceed with equal determine
| ton straight into the Baltic would
seem TO explode AR Crotch's theory
and to leave speculation as wide a
range as before.
TO CURE \ COLD IN ONE DAY
! Take laxative BromO Our ne Tablets. A
/ druggists refund the money if ii fails tc
| cure. 25c.
The export of horses from this
country 10 Europe has increased large