In the centre, the defective arrangements of the allied staff had delayed the 4th column (Kolowrat), the line of march of which was crossed by Liechtenstein's cavalry moving in the opposite direction.
On the 19th of April 1775 the British columns returning from Concord were harassed by the farmers here, as in the other towns along the line of march.
The circumstance which has given popular interest to the lemming is that certain districts of the cultivated lands of Norway and Sweden, where in ordinary circumstances they are unknown, are, at uncertain intervals varying from five to twenty or more years, overrun by an army of these little creatures, which steadily and slowly advance, always in the same direction, and regardless of all obstacles, swimming streams and even lakes of several miles in breadth, and committing considerable devastation on their line of march by the quantity of food they consume.
Occasionally vast armies of locusts or caterpillars advance over large tracts of country, devouring all vegetation in their line of march.
The army merely swung backwards, pivoting on its left wing, the corps preserving their relative order as it had been on the 16th, with the exception that the Imperial Guard was withdrawn to the spur on which Fort Plappeville stands, and the 6th Corps (Marshal Canrobert) crossed the line of march of the 3rd and 4th Corps in order to gain St Privat la Montagne.
