THE MACKENZIE BASIN 
59 
poplars, Banksian pine and balsam fir. With these are asso¬ 
ciated, generally in the form of undergrowth., a variety of 
shrubs, some of which have a continuous distribution through 
the forest zone, whereas others are more or less restricted 
in range. But the whole region between Hudson Bay and 
the mouth of the Mackenzie River is by no means all forested. 
North of a line drawn from the mouth of the Churchill River 
to the mouth of the Mackenzie, the country belongs to what 
are known as the “ barren-grounds,” which have already been 
alluded to in previous chapters. They are largely covered 
with short grass, moss and small flowering plants interspersed 
with patches of sedgy or peaty soil on which grow Labrador 
tea, crowberries, dwarf birches, and willows. Both flora 
and fauna, in fact, remind us vividly of certain parts of Green¬ 
land and Labrador. 
The only large mammals, as in Greenland, are the barren- 
ground caribou and the musk ox. The former is simply 
spoken of as the “ deer ” by the northern hunters. Zoologi¬ 
cally it belongs to the barren-ground form (Rangifer arcticus) 
which, as I remarked, seems to be closely allied to the Green¬ 
land reindeer. It is not so with the musk ox, as Dr. Kowarzik 
has recently shown. After a very careful and extended ex¬ 
amination of a number of skins and skulls of musk oxen 
from this region, he was able to show that they differed from 
those living elsewhere by the possession of a deep lachrymal 
pit and two mammary glands. The Greenland musk ox, which 
belongs to the eastern group, has no lachrymal pit and four 
mammary glands. There are other minor differences clearly 
proving that Dr. Kowarzik’s * Ovibos moschatus macken- 
zianus is much more than a mere race. It is, in fact, a species 
perfectly distinct from the one inhabiting Greenland. In 
spite of these differences, the casual observer is easily misled 
by the apparent external resemblances among all the musk 
oxen. 
The general similarity in the fauna of the Mackenzie 
region and that of Greenland is by no means super¬ 
ficial, and holds good to some extent even among the smaller 
kinds of beasts. The arctic hare seems much like the Green- 
* Kowarzik, K., “ Der Moschusochs und seine Rassen,” p. 120. 
