mostly in the night. They rest during the day, and devour every root and vegetable they can meet with. They infect the very herbage; and cattle are said to perish, that feed upon the grafs they have touched.

An enemy so numerous and so destructive, would soon render the country they pass through utterly uninhabitable, did it not fortunately happen, that the same rapacity that excites them to lay waste the productions of the earth, at last impels them to destroy one another. Having nothing more to subsist on, they are said to separate into two armies, which engage with the most deadly hatred, and continue fighting and devouring each other till they are all entirely destroyed. Thousands of them have been found dead; and the air, infected by their putrid carcases, has sometimes been the occasion of malignant distempers. Great numbers of them are likewise destroyed by foxes, lynxes, weasels, and other beasts of prey, which follow them during their march.

The leming is somewhat lefs than the rat; its head is pointed; and in each jaw are two very long cutting teeth, with which it bites keenly; its ears are fhort, eyes small, legs slender, and those before fhorter than the hind; the colour of the head, black and tawny, disposed in irregular patches; the belly, white, tinged with yellow; it runs very swiftly.— Fortunately none of them have ever been seen in Britain; and as it never becomes an intimate with man, like the rat, our insular situation will prevent us from ever experiencing the scourge of this diminutive ravager.

Though perfectly disgusting to other people, its flesh is said to be eaten by the Laplanders. Probably

May 23. necefsity has taught them this lefson, in the same way that the inhabitants of some southern countries have been constrained to feed upon locusts themselves, after these had eaten up all their other provisions.

Where these numerous tribes of animals are bred and collected, as has been already said, is not certain-ly known. Linnæus says they are produced among the Norwegian and Lapland Alps; and Pontoppidan. supposes that Kolin's rock, which divides Nordland from Sweden, is their native place. But wherever they come from, none return. Their course is predestinated; and they pursue their fate.

Such is the best account that can as yet be obtained of this singular animal: Probably, as its natural history comes to be better known, some abatement may be made from the marvellous part of it. Though, as it attracted the attention of the great Linnæus, we must rest satisfied that the leading traits of this account are just.

*** It is proposed, in the course of this work, to give, from time to time, accounts of the most remarkable objects that occur in the walk of natural history, accompanied with figures of such as are uncommon, executed by that ingenious artist, Bewick of Newcastle.

I

SIR,

ON MANUFACTURES.

To the Editor of the Bee.

Banks of the Tay, March 3. 1792. HAVE long been desirous that the rapid progrefs that vice and difsipation have of late years made in this

0

country, by means of the great spread of manufactures, had, in some very particular manner attracted the attention, and engaged the pens of your correspondents, as your respectable publication is so well fitted to convey useful information through so many quarters of the world.

It was with particular pleasure, that, under date of February twelvemonth, I read some very judicious observations on this subject by one of your correspondents, in an attempt to fhew the advantages accruing to the country at large, to private families, and even to individuals, from the general extension of agriculture, well conducted, and properly supported. I sincerely with him success in his laudable endeavours to put his fellow citizens on their guard against their so generally going into the present rage for manufactures, pointing out to them the pernicious tendency of too ardent a pursuit after riches, honours, and pleasure, by their means, and, to a large body of them, opening an avenue that leads to health and reat happinefs.

No person in his right senses will question the necefsity of calling forth the industry of their country; but the danger seems to arise from the giving that industry too much one direction. On their first appearance, manufactures afsume a pleasing and a smiling fhow; but as they move on, they collect the profligate, the daring, and the licentious, till at last, in an advanced stage, they present to the more innocent spectators, a spectacle hideous, alarming, and dangerous. Perhaps the happiest period of any civiJized country, is, when its industry is afsiduously

May 23, distributed among the labourers, artizans, merchants, and all other profefsions useful to society; and when it is thought, that, to attain preferment and respect in life, requires an attention to those studies that dignify human nature, and a dedication of a greater length of time to acquire them, than is, in our present manufacturing state of society, thought necefsary in general to bestow. Education may certainly be considered as the source of the greatest benefits to society as well as to individuals, as the earliest imprefsions determine the character of man, and operate with good or bad effect the rest of his life. What ever, therefore, operates so as to fhorten too much that necefsary and useful period of time that is spent in acquiring virtuous instruction, or has a tendency to corrupt education itself, is certainly, in the most alarming degree, hostile to the interests and happinefs of mankind.-A too extended manufacture, by giving too early employment to children of both 'sexes, of the middling, as well as in the common rank of life, takes them off too soon, or altogether, from their schools, where they not only acquired necefsary informations, but likewise their habits of order and subordination, which they naturally carried into the world with them, with good effects to themselves and society.

This state of manufacture, too, has a certain tendency to corrupt the young mind, as the first objects which it presents to the growing pafsions are fortune and greatnefs; and young people, seeing these obtain but too much the incense and homage of their parents, and those around them, the consequence is,

they either neglect the virtues, or overlook them, to elevate themselves to these objects. The more that manufactures extend themselves, the more they throw society into an unnatural state, by collecting them into too large bodies; and as admittance into these bodies is rather to be attained by ingenuity or dexterity in some particular manufacture, than by any test of moral character, or mental acquirements, by this means, the worthlefs are mixed with the young of both sexes, who, being without the advantages of an carly education, offer them but too easy means of debauching, or, by their example, of spreading vicious infection through the whole body.

Manufactures, it is true, bring into society, by means of diffusing money, a great number of rich indivi duals; but the pity is, that bad and mean men increase in riches as fast as good men; and their riches will be employed too often for the purposes of seduction, grofs gratification, and frivolous amusements: We see that, by means of a neglected education, and a loose state of society, they will find a field but too readily prepared for them to indulge in every vice. The more money there is diffused, the more the passions are extended, and the more furious they grow, till at last a certain foundation is laid for future misery and wretchednefs, by the sure introduction of vice under every form,-profligacy, drunkenness, debility and disease.

The limits of your publication confine me to view my subject as it affects the education and morals of youth, from facts falling under my own observation; the subject is certainly big with importance, and in