Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/379

Rh description appeared, given by Thomas Pennant from a skin sent to England by Samuel Hearne, and all acquaintance with the creature was derived from the arctic explorers (Drage, Dobbs, Ellis, Hearne, Parry, and others), who in general terms describe its appearance and give meager accounts of its habits. Dr. Richardson, in 1829, sums up the available information, and adds a few remarks of his own, which refer principally to the specimens then exhibited in the British Museum. Audubon, in his valuable history of the Quadrupeds of North America, published in 1854, is confined almost to a literal copy of Richardson's account; while so late as 1859 Spencer F. Baird, in his ponderous volume, the Mammals of North America, dismisses the subject with a reference of barely twenty lines. His words, however, are significant; for, while he admits that the animal furnishes a most interesting study, he laments our scant knowledge of this sturdy arctic inhabitant.

The special inquiry made three or four years ago by the Government of Canada, as to the resources of the Great Mackenzie Basin, furnishes data of utmost value: the enterprise of the modern press in ferreting out and bringing to our notice every item which concerns itself with the great questions of commerce and social economy, and the progress made in polar research during the last thirty years, contribute many facts in connection with the study of the musk ox; and we are enabled by the gathering and arranging of these to give in a more complete form the history of this animal.

In systematic zoölogy the place accorded to the musk ox is intermediate between those of the sheep (Ovis) and the ox (Bos), and for its special accommodation a new genus has been created, "Ovibos." Most writers notice its resemblance in many ways to the buffalo or bison, and it undoubtedly has much affinity with this species. A peculiar prominence is given in all early records to the description of the horns of the musk ox, which, though valuable to the Eskimos in the making of such commodities as cups, spoons, etc., by no means seem to be of so much importance, yet in every account the most minute particular of these appendages is repeated. Doubtless much of the character of the musk ox depends on the horns; still, it should be noted that the descriptions above referred to apply only to the bull, whose horns meet on the forehead, bend sharply down, and curve gracefully upward and outward; the cow's horns are more similar to those of the bison, or even may be compared to the horns of our domestic cattle. The skull of the bull musk ox is remarkable for the development of the eye-orbits, which project sufficiently beyond the plane of the frontal bones to compensate for the interruption the horns would otherwise make in the range of vision. The musk