Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/381

Rh take several years to restock the area over which we hunted along the northern shore of Grinnell Land. Examples examined by me contained many parasitical worms (Filaria) in the large intestine.

Ovibos moschatus.—The attention of many distinguished naturalists has been given to the history of this animal, but the most important and exhaustive essay on the subject is that by Professor Boyd Dawkins, published in the volume of the Palæontological Society for 1871. There is an excellent article on the Musk-ox in the history of the German Arctic Expedition of 1869–70, and Dr. R. Brown, in his exhaustive paper on the Mammalian Fauna of Greenland, reprinted in the 'Admiralty Manual' of 1875 (from Proc. Zool. Soc), gives full information in regard to the past and present range of this animal in Greenland. On my return from the Arctic Regions I was able to place in the hands of Dr. James Murie a few small portions of the stomach and other organs, so that before long we shall obtain some further insight into its anatomy from that accomplished physiologist. My regret is that the material given to Dr. Murie was extremely limited in amount. The fossil remains of Ovibos found in Siberia, North America, Germany, France and England have been determined by naturalists as identical with the species now found living in the northern regions of the American continent and the most northern and eastern shores of Greenland, whilst most of the larger Mammalia of the Pleistocene period, with which the Musk-ox was associated, have passed away. The Musk-ox, being truly an Arctic mammal, doubtless travelled northward as the glacial ice-cap contracted; but in Europe and Asia this animal found its limit of withdrawal bounded by the mainlands of the Old World. No trace of it has been discovered in Spitzbergen or Franz Joseph Land; and the reasonable conclusion is that the great extent of sea which separates these groups of islands from the continents, formed an insuperable obstacle to its progress in that direction. Doubtless its remains are to be found in the New Siberian Islands, and there is no valid reason why it should not still inhabit Kellett Land. So far as we know, however, the Musk-ox living on the Arctic shores of Asia had no inaccessible retreats analogous to the Parry Archipelago of America, and consequently when brought into collision with man must have quickly disappeared. Towards the close of the last Glacial period, when the Straits of Behring were doubtless as choked with