﻿1848. MUSK-OXEN. 325 



sexes, but are most largely developed in the old 

 males. The rausk-ox has also the peculiarity in 

 the bovine tribe of the want of a tail ; the caudal 

 vertebrge, only six in number, being very flat, and 

 nearly as short, in reference to the pelvis, as in the 

 human species; the extreme one ending evenly 

 with the tuberosities of the ischium. A tail is not 

 needed by this animal, as in its elevated summer 

 haunts moschetoes and other winged pests are 

 comparatively few, while its close, woolly, and 

 shaggy hair furnishes its body with sufficient pro- 

 tection from their assaults. The fore-pasterns are 

 provided on their out sides with a slender acces- 

 sory bone, of about half their length. The fossil 

 Irish elk and musk-deer have also rudimentary 

 toes, but of a different form. Though I have not 

 been able to ascertain that the range of the species 

 was ever greater than it is known to be at present, 

 I have read somewhere of a skull having been 

 found in Greenland. One in tolerable preserva- 

 tion, but defective in the nose, was procured by 

 Captain Beachey, from that very curious deposit of 

 bones in the frozen cliiFs of Eschscholtz Bay of 

 Beering's Straits. That skull is now preserved in 

 the British Museum, and a perfect skeleton of the 

 recent animal exists in the museum at Haslar 

 Hospital. 



Sept. Sth. — A meridional observation was ob- 



Y 3 



