No. II. MAMMALIA. L99 



treats analogous to the Parry Archipelago of America, and 



consequently when brought into collision with man urn -t 

 have quickly disappeared. Towards the close of the last 

 Glacial period, when the Straits of Behring were doubt Leas 

 as choked with ice as the passage now is between Banks' 

 Land and Melville Island, there could have been no great 

 obstacle to prevent the passage of the musk-ox from che Old 

 World to the New : but whether its course of migration was 

 from Asia to America, or contrariwise, there can be no ques- 

 tion that on the latter continent it found a congenial home. 

 Its remains have been discovered in greater or less quantities 

 from Escholtz Bay on the west to the shores of Lancaster 

 Sound, whilst the animal still inhabits the Barren-lands of 

 the American continent. Even in this wilderness, sparsely 

 inhabited by Eskimo, its southern range is slowly contracting, 

 whilst, according to Richardson, the Mackenzie River is now 

 its western limit. Melville Island and other lands to the 

 north of the American continent have proved a safe asylum 

 to the musk-ox, and there it will continue to propagate its 

 species, undisturbed save by the casual appearance of Arctic 

 voyagers. From the islands of the Parry group its range 

 northwards across the eightieth parallel into Ellesmere and 

 Grinneli Land, as high as the eighty-third parallel to the 

 shores of the Polar Sea, is extremely natural ; and Robeson 

 Channel, which has presented no obstacle to the progress of 

 the lemming and ermine, has also been crossed by the musk- 

 ox, the 'Polaris' Expedition as well as ours rinding it in Hall 

 Land. After crossing the strait between the American 

 islands and Greenland, the musk-ox appears to have followed 

 the coasts both in a northerly and southerly direction, its 

 range in Greenland to the southward being stopped by the 

 great glaciers of Melville Bay. At one time it must have 

 been abundant on the West Greenland coast as far south as 

 the seventy-eighth parallel, for Dr. Kane found numerous 

 remains in the vicinity of Rensselaer Bay, and Dr. Hayes 

 found a skull in Chester Valley at the head of Foulke Fiord. 

 During the single day we explored in the neighbourhood of 



