CORRESPONDENCE aND INFORMATION. 



93 



3" 



(CORRESPONDENCE 



^*" and Information 



A FAMOUS MUSK-OX HEAD. 



Zoological Park, New York City. 



To THi-: Editor : — 



The national collection of heads and 

 horns, at the Zoological Park, has just 

 received a notable and valuable musk-ox 

 head as a gift from Warburton Pike, of 

 Victoria. British Columbia. All read- 

 ers of Arctic travels, and all hunters of 

 bip" game, know Mr. Pike as the author 

 of that finest of ^11 works on northern 

 Canada, entitled "The Barren Grounds 

 of Northern Canada," published by the 

 Macmilian Company in 1892 Among 

 books of its kind it is a classic. Jt de- 

 scribes Mr. Pike's daring and even ter- 

 rible trip in midwinter into the country 

 of the musk-ox and barren ground car- 



HEAD OF MUSK OX. 

 Courtesy of the New York Zoological Society. 



ibou, from which he brouerht out the 



first detailed and authentic information 

 in 



ever given 



the world regarding the 

 barren ground musk-ox on its native 

 .leath. His 



subsequent hunting expeditions into that 

 desolate, and in winter terrible country. 



Mr. Pike is a resident of \ ictoria, 

 British Columbia, and owns a gold mine 

 in the Dease LaKe region. A year ago 

 he passed throush New York, and was 

 made much of by the big °'ame hunters 

 of New York, at the Boone and Crock- 

 ett Club, and in the Zoological Park. 

 From the first he has been keenlv inter- 

 ested in the movement for a national 

 collection of heads and horns. 



The musk-ox head recently received 

 from Mr. Pike is the largest and finest 

 trophy of his famous expedition. It ap- 

 pears in Mr. Rowland Ward's "Records 

 of P>ig Game," well up near the top of 

 th^ list of "record" h°ads of musk-ox. 

 Its measurements are as follows: 

 Length of horn on outside curve. 26% in. 

 Distance between tips of horns ... 27 in. 

 Width of horn at base 11 in 



The hair under the chin is about a 

 foot in length. 



The head was mounted by John Fan- 

 nin, late curator of the Provincial Mu- 

 seum at Victoria, and is in a fine state of 

 preservation. Its colors are apparently 

 as fresh as when, in a temperature of 30 

 degrees below zero, in a howling gale of 

 snow, the owner was shot, decapitated, 

 and devoured — all save this head, — by 

 five desperate men and a dozen hungry 



sled dogs. 



W. T. liORNADAY. 



book was the motif of all 



FEEDING GREY SQUIRRELS. 



Lowville. N. Y. 

 To the Editor : 



The late frosts of the spring of 1902, 

 which proved such a blessing in dis- 

 guise by ridding our section of the coun- 

 try of the tent caterpillars, were most 

 unfortunate for the squirrels. The ten- 

 der flower-buds of the beech, butter-nut 

 and other trees upon the fruits of which 

 they depend for their winter's supplies 



