Many similar animals, and others of a more modern time, are embedded in the ice, though it is not to be supposed that the tundra was ever able to sustain a much richer fauna than it has now. Bison and musk-ox traversed it long after the time of the mammoth; giant-elk and moose belonged to it once. Now its animal life is as poor and monotonous as its vegetation—as itself. This holds true, however, only with regard to species, not to individuals, for the tundra is, at least in summer, the home of numerous animals.
The year is well advanced before the tundra begins to be visibly peopled. Of the species which never leave it one sees very little in winter. The fish which ascend its rivers from the sea are concealed by the ice; the mammals and birds which winter in it are hidden by the snow, under which they live, or whose colour they wear. Not until the snow begins to melt on the southern slopes does the animal life begin to stir. Hesitatingly the summer visitors make their appearance. The wolf follows the wild reindeer, the army of summer birds follows the drifting ice blocks on the streams. Some of the birds remain still undecided in the regions to the South, behave as if they would breed there, then suddenly disappear from their resting-place by the way, fly hastily to the tundra, begin to build directly on their arrival, lay their eggs, and brood eagerly, as though they wished to make up for the time gained by their relatives in the South. Their summer life is compressed into few weeks. They arrive already united, paired for life, or at least for the summer; their hearts stirred by all-powerful love, they proceed, singing and rejoicing, to build a nest; unceasingly they give themselves up to their parental duties, brood, rear, and educate their young, moult, and migrate abroad again.
Fig. 7.—The White or Arctic Fox (Canis lagopus).
The number of species which may be looked upon as native to the tundra is small indeed, yet it is much greater than that of those which may be regarded as characteristic of the region. As the first of these, I should like to place the Arctic fox. He ranges over the whole extent of the tundra, and is sure of maintenance and food in the south at least, where he occurs along with our fox and other allied species. Like some other creatures he wears the colours of his home, in summer a rock-coloured dress, in winter a snow-white robe, for the hairs of his thick fur coat are at first stone-gray or grayish-blue, and become snow-white in winter.[9] He struggles through life with ups and downs like other foxes, but his whole character and conduct are quite different from those of our reynard and his near relatives. One scarcely does him injustice in describing him as a degenerate member of a distinguished family, unusually gifted, intelligent, and ingenious. Of the slyness and ingenuity, the calculating craft, the never-failing presence of mind of his congeners he evinces hardly any trace. His disposition is bold and forward, his manner officious, his behaviour foolish. He may be a bold beggar, an impudent vagabond, but he is never a cunning thief or robber, weighing all circumstances, and using all available means to attain his end. Unconcernedly he stares at the huntsman’s gun; unwarned by the ball, which passes whistling over his body, he follows his worst enemy; unhesitatingly he forces his way into the birch-bark hut of the wandering reindeer-herdsmen; without fear he approaches a man sleeping in the open, to steal the game he has caught, or even to snap at a naked limb. On one occasion an Arctic fox at which I had several times fired in vain in the dusk, kept following my steps like a dog. My old sporting friend, Erik Swenson of Dovrefjeld, relates that one night a fox nibbled the fur rug on which he lay, and old Steller vouches for many other pranks which this animal plays, pranks which every one would declare incredible were they not thoroughly guaranteed by corroborating observations. An insufficient knowledge of human beings, so sparsely represented in the tundra, may to some extent account for the extraordinary behaviour of this fox, but it is not the only reason. For neither the red fox nor any other mammal of the tundra behaves with so little caution; not even the lemming approaches him in this respect.
A strange creature certainly is this last inhabitant of our region whatever species of his family we consider. He, or at least his tracks, may be seen everywhere throughout the tundra. The tracks run in all directions, often through places overgrown by dwarf-birches, narrow, smooth, neatly-kept paths in the moss, going straight for several hundred yards, then diverging to right or left, and only returning to the main path after many circuits. On these we may often see, in great numbers during a dry summer, a little, short-tailed, hamster-like animal nimbly pattering along and soon disappearing out of sight. This is the lemming, a rodent smaller than a rat, but larger than a mouse, and with brightly but irregularly marked skin, usually brown, yellow, gray, and black. If we dissect the animal we see, not without surprise, that it consists almost entirely of skin and viscera. Its bones and muscles are fine and tender; its viscera, especially the alimentary and the reproductive organs, are enormously developed. This state of things explains some phenomena of its life which were long considered unintelligible: the almost abrupt occurrence of well-nigh unlimited fertility, and the vast, apparently organized migrations of the animal. In ordinary circumstances the lemming leads a very comfortable life. Neither in summer nor in winter has he any anxiety about subsistence. In winter he devours all sorts of vegetable matter,—moss-tips, lichen, and bark; in summer he lives in his burrow, in winter in a warm, thick-walled, softly-lined nest. Danger indeed threatens from all sides, for not only beasts and birds of prey, but even the reindeer devour hundreds and thousands of lemmings;[10] nevertheless they increase steadily and rapidly, until special circumstances arise when millions, which have come into existence within a few weeks, are annihilated within a few days. Spring sets in early, and a more than usually dry summer prevails in the tundra. All the young of the first litter of the various lemming females thrive, and six weeks later, at the most, these also multiply. Meantime the parents have brought forth a second and a third litter, and these in their turn bring forth young. Within three months the heights and low grounds of the tundra teem with lemmings, just as our fields do with mice under similar circumstances. Whichever way we turn, we see the busy little creatures, dozens at a single glance, thousands in the course of an hour. They run about on all the paths and roads; driven to extremity, they turn, snarling and sharpening their teeth, on the defensive even against man, as if their countless numbers lent to each individual a defiant courage. But the countless and still-increasing numbers prove their own destruction. Soon the lean tundra ceases to afford employment enough for their greedy teeth. Famine threatens, perhaps actually sets in. The anxious animals crowd together and begin their march. Hundreds join with hundreds, thousands with other thousands: the troops become swarms, the swarms armies. They travel in a definite direction, at first following old tracks, but soon striking out new ones; in unending files—defying all computation—they hasten onwards; over the cliffs they plunge into the water. Thousands fall victims to want and hunger; the army behind streams on over their corpses; hundreds of thousands are drowned in the water, or are shattered at the foot of the cliffs; the remainder speed on; other hundreds and thousands fall victims to the voracity of Arctic and red foxes, wolves and gluttons, rough-legged buzzards and ravens, owls and skuas which have followed them; the survivors pay no heed. Where these go, how they end, none can say, but certain it is that the tundra behind them is as if dead, that a number of years pass ere the few who have remained behind, and have managed to survive, slowly multiply, and visibly re-people their native fields.[11]
Fig. 8.—The Reindeer (Tarandus rangifer).
A third animal characteristic of the tundra is the reindeer. Those who know this deer, in itself by no means beautiful, only in a state of captivity and slavery, can form no idea of what it is under natural conditions. Here in the tundra one learns to appreciate the reindeer, to recognize and value him as a member of a family which he does not disgrace. He belongs to the tundra, body and soul. Over the immense glacier and the quivering crust of the unfathomable morass, over the boulder-heaps and the matted tops of the dwarf-birches or over the mossy hillocks, over rivers and lakes he runs or swims with his broad-hoofed, shovel-like, extraordinarily mobile feet, which crackle at every step. In the deepest snow he uses his foot to dig for food. He is protected against the deadly cold of the long northern night by his thick skin, which the arrows of winter cannot pierce, against the pangs of hunger by the indiscriminateness of his appetite. From the wolf, which invariably follows close on his heels, he is, in some measure at least, saved by the acuteness of his senses, by his speed and endurance. He passes the summer on the clear heights of the tundra, where, on the slopes just beside the glaciers, the soil, belted over with reindeer-moss, also brings forth juicy, delicate alpine plants; in winter he ranges through the low tundra from hill to hill seeking spots from which the snow has been cleared off by the wind.[12] Shortly before this, having attained to his full strength and fully grown his branching antlers, he had in passionate violence engaged in deadly combat with like-minded rivals as strong as himself until the still tundra resounded with the clashing of their horns. Now, worn out with fighting and with love, he ranges peacefully through his territory with others of his kind, associated in large herds, seeking only to maintain the struggle with winter. The reindeer is certainly far behind the stag in beauty and nobility, but when one sees the great herds, unhampered by the fetters of slavery, on the mountains of their native tundra, in vivid contrast to the blue of the sky and the whiteness of the snowy carpet, one must acknowledge that he, too, takes rank among noble wild beasts, and that he has more power than is usually supposed to quicken the beating of the sportsman’s heart.
The tundra also possesses many characteristic birds. Whoever has traversed the northern desert must have met one, at least, of these, the ptarmigan: