The Musk-ox 75 



stupid, mild creature, — -anything but "ferocious." 

 In one little band of eight which we had sepa- 

 rated from the main herd and killed, a yearling' 

 calf ran against my legs, seemingly seeking pro- 

 tection from the dogs precisely as a young sheep 

 would. 



The musk-ox appears, in fact, to be a veritable 

 link between the ox and the sheep. It has the 

 rudimentary tail, the molar teeth structure, the 

 hairy muzzle, and the intestines of the sheep ; 

 while its short and wide canon-bones are like 

 those of the ox, and differ widely from either 

 sheep or goat. The hoofs are large, with curved 

 toes and somewhat concave underneath, like the 

 caribou hoof, which facilitates climbing rocky 

 ridges and scraping away the snow from their 

 only food, the lichen and the moss, for which 

 purpose their horns are also admirably adapted. 

 Mr. Rhodes has advanced the theory of the 

 existence of a transition between the musk-ox 

 and the bison, but the structure of the molar 

 teeth and the rudimentary tail convince Profes- 

 sor R. Lydekker, perhaps the foremost scientific 

 authority, of the impossibility of there being any 

 manner of relationship between the two groups. 

 Scientifically, the musk-ox is of the genus Ovi- 



