THE GAME ANIMALS OF CANADA 95 
western trading-posts, owing to the great expense entailed 
in fitting out the Indians to hunt them at so great a dis- 
tance away in the interior, but from the Arctic coast on 
the north and the Chesterfield Inlet region on the east, the 
Eskimos, better equipped, and able to travel through almost 
any country, were reported to be attacking the remaining 
herds. 
Distribution.—The most recent account of the present 
distribution of the musk-ox, and the extent to which its 
extermination is proceeding, is given in the following re- 
port, which has been kindly prepared at my request by 
Doctor R. M. Anderson, who has had unequalled oppor- 
tunities for collecting information on the subject as chief of 
the southern party of the Canadian Arctic Expedition 
(1913-1916), and on his previous sojourn in the Arctic in 
1908-1912. Doctor Anderson states: 
The musk-ox has been greatly reduced in numbers during the last 
few years. The last musk-ox was killed in the region around Franklin 
Bay about eighteen years ago, and the last records near the coast, west 
of the Coppermine River, were not later than sixteen years ago, in the 
Darnley Bay region. No musk-oxen are left on Banks Island, accord- 
ing to Mr. George H. Wilkins, who has recently returned after spend- 
ing considerable time in 1914, 1915 and 1916, in traversing the greater 
part of Banks Island with the Northern Party of the Canadian Arctic 
Expedition. There were formerly numbers of musk-oxen on Banks 
“Island, as is evidenced by skulls and skeletal parts seen frequently 
on the land. According to Mr. Wilkins, Melville Island, which is not 
normally inhabited, has a good many musk-oxen left, and the Western 
Eskimo hunters who were taken north to Winter Harbour to establish a 
base for 1916-1917, were killing a good many musk-oxen in the spring 
of 1916. 
The Indians have within the past few years practically exterminated 
the species around the east of Great Bear Lake. Three to my knowl- 
edge were seen and killed by the Indians there in the winter of 1910-1911, 
and they were said to have finished off a herd of eighty almost com- 
pletely a few years before that. Inspector C. D. LaNauze, R.N.W.M.P., 
reports that the Indians saw a few musk-ox tracks on the north side of 
Great Bear Lake in the summer of 1915. No musk-oxen have been seen 
