586 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



the ground. They drag it in long tags after them as they walk 

 and these can be picked up on the ground. Although the hair 

 is not properly shed, a few pieces break off, as may be the case 

 with the mane or tail of a horse, and straggling hairs are, therefore, 

 found in the wool. 



We have already described ovibos as having several character- 

 istics unique among grazing animals. But there are others. So 

 far as I know, they are the only herbivori that do not roam in 

 search of pasture. While they generally avoid lichens and mosses, 

 they eat all the grass in their neighborhood and move only as fast 

 as the feed is removed. Eskimos go so far as to say that if you 

 see a herd here this year you will find them not far from here 

 next year, and Hanbury quotes the Indians of Slave Lake as hav- 

 ing a similar saying. This is emphasizing the fact by over-state- 

 ment, for in such pasture as Melville Island they move from three 

 to six miles per month. When they come to a really rocky or bar- 

 ren patch, they may make a move in an hour or two covering sev- 

 eral miles. In a rich country like Banks Island, which probably 

 averages from five to ten times as much vegetation to the square 

 mile as Melville Island, a herd of thirty or forty animals might 

 not move more than a mile in a month. 



In Melville Island ten or fifteen animals make up a typical 

 herd and I have never seen more than forty in a herd, strictly 

 speaking, although I have seen over a hundred scattered over a 

 few square miles of flat land in such a way that one might take 

 them for a single herd. 



They are peculiar among powerful animals in that they seldom 

 attack and seldom flee. They have the military principle of the 

 British square, but they have never developed the theory that the 

 best way to defend yourself is to attack. Indeed it would not be 

 the best way for them. It may be that animals of the type of 

 panther preyed upon them long ago when they lived in southerly 

 lands, but in the Arctic they have, when the calf stage is once 

 passed, a defense against every enemy that troubles them, except 

 man. Polar bears might be expected to prey on them but we have 

 never heard of this nor seen any evidence of it, and I doubt very 

 much whether a bear would fare well if he attempted to attack 

 more than one ovibos. Neither do I know which can run the 

 faster. Both are clumsy but both are at home in rough going. 



Reindeer and sheep are milked for butter and cheese-making 

 in certain countries. Ovibos give more milk, probably richer in 

 butter fat, and of a flavor either identical with the richest cow's 



