Now, to the Lapp the reindeer is what cows are to the Kaffir, or land and funded property to us. A Lapp of moderate wealth must possess at least a thousand reindeer. Half that number are required to make a man recognized as one of the well-to-do middle class, while those who only have forty or fifty are nothing but servants, who are forced to mingle their deer with those of their masters.
From these details the reader can form some idea of the vast herds of tame reindeer possessed by the Lapps alone. The annual incursion of these herds into more civilized countries can at the best be considered only a nuisance, and as the herds increase in numbers year by year their migration becomes an intolerable pest.
For example, the Globe newspaper lately made the following remarks:
“Every year, Tromsoe is the meeting point of upward of a hundred thousand reindeer, the property of the nomads, who follow them from Sweden. The herd is rather ‘nice’ in the selection of pasturage, and the absence of everything save a mere superficial control gives it the most complete freedom of choice.
“Wandering about at their own sweet will, the reindeer do damage indiscriminately in meadow, plowed land, and forest. The farmer may protest, but he is powerless to prevent the destruction of his young wood or the trampling down of his crops.
“If he appeals to the authorities he is baffled by the practical impossibility of fixing responsibility for damage upon the right owner. Only the Lapps know the offender, and a verdict with damages often enough serves no other purpose than that of bringing Scandinavian justice into ridicule, for, before it can be carried into effect, the defendant has gone on another of his annual migrations.”
This pest has at last reached such dimensions that special laws were made about a year ago to meet it. Norway and Sweden have therefore been divided into districts, and if damage be done, and the owners of the offending animals not be given up, the entire district has to make good the damage, each family having to pay in proportion to the number of reindeer which they own.
Now we will take another example of migration from the same country.
As we have seen, the migration of the reindeer occurs at regular intervals, and can be provided against, especially as it is possible to make the owners of the migrators responsible for the damage which they do. But there is one animal of northern Europe which has no special time for migration, against whose approach it is impossible to provide, whom it is almost equally impossible to resist when it is on the march, and for whom no one can be responsible. It is therefore far more baneful to civilized man.
This is the lemming, a little, short-tailed, round-eared rodent, somewhat resembling our common water-rat in shape and size. In its ordinary life it is nothing more than a small, rather voracious, very prolific, and unintellectual rodent. It is too stupid to get out the way of anything, and if met by a cart its only idea would be to bite the wheel. Mr. Metcalfe mentions that two or three lemmings might be indulging in their favorite habit of sitting on a stump. If a traveler accompanied by dogs passed by them, the dogs were sure to fly at the lemmings. Yet the stupid creatures would not think of escaping, though there might be plenty of time to do so, but would merely sit on the stumps and try to bite the dogs’ noses. This remarkable stupidity will account for the way in which the migration invariably ends.