ly are, as is
shown by the complicated excavation of their subterranean cities;
besides which, every feather and hair of bird and animal found in the
vicinity of their dwellings, is made to contribute its iota of warmth
and comfort to the interior of their winter quarters.

"I had," continues the master of the _Resolute_, "many opportunities of
watching their movements during my detention at Winter Harbour. My tent
happened to be pitched immediately over one of their large towns,
causing its inhabitants to issue forth from its thousand gates to catch
a view of the strangers. Frequently on waking we have found the little
animals, rolled up in a ball, snugly ensconced within the folds of our
blanket-bags; nor would they be expelled from such a warm and desirable
position without showing fight. On several occasions I observed Naps,
the dog, fast asleep with one or two lemmings huddled away between its
legs, like so many pups."

He says that Lieutenant Mecham noticed an Esquimaux dog, named Buffer,
trudging along, nose to the ground, quite unconscious of danger, when a
lemming, suddenly starting from its cavern, seized poor Buffer by the
nose, inflicting a severe wound. The dog, astounded at such an
unsuspected assault, gave a dismal howl, and at length shook the enemy
off, after which he became the attacking party, and in less than a
minute the presumptuous assailant disappeared between the jaws of the
Tartar he had attempted to catch.

FOOTNOTES:

[158] Mitchell's "Popular Guide to the Zoological Gardens," p. 9.
(1852.)

[159] Mark Lemon's "Jest Book," p. 180.

[160] Ed. 1845, p. 339.

[161] P. 441. Sir John Richardson told me that the species was
_Spermophilus Parryi_.

[162] The Eventful Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ship _Resolute_ to the
Arctic Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin, in 1852-3-4, pp. 314,
315.

RATS AND MICE.

Why should we not, like Grainger, begin this section as the writer of
"The Sugar-Cane" does one of his paragraphs--

"Come muse! let's sing of rats."

The "restless rottens" and mice need little introduction. They are a
most fertile race, and some species of them seem only to be in human
habitations. They are terrible nuisances, and yet rat-skins are said to
be manufactured in Paris into gloves.

Sydney Smith's comparison of some one dying like a poisoned rat in a
ditch is a powerful one. The same writer, in hunting down an unworthy
man, with his cutting criticism, says