98 The Musk-ox 



legs, which are massive, and although short, 

 appear to be shorter than they are because of the 

 long hair that falls over them. In running, they 

 have a rolling, choppy kind of a gait, and I 

 noticed when they fell from a rifle wound they 

 could not get on their feet again. 



The growth of the horn is very interesting. It 

 begins exactly as with domestic cattle by a straight 

 shoot out from the head. For the first year, 

 it is impossible to tell the difference between the 

 sexes by the horns. In the second year, the bull 

 horn is a little whiter than that of the cow ; the 

 forehead of a two-year musk-ox I killed showed a 

 forehead covered with short, curlish hair. In 

 this year the cow's horn begins to show a down- 

 ward turn, and is fully developed at its third year. 

 The bull's horns, on the contrary, are just begin- 

 ning to spread at the base in the third year. They 

 continue spreading toward the centre of the fore- 

 head until they meet in the bull's fifth year, but in 

 the sixth year they begin to separate, leaving a 

 crevice in the centre which widens as the bull 

 ages until it is from an inch to an inch and a half 

 wide. In the cow these crevices also open by age 

 to even a greater extent than in the bull. The 

 horns of both bull and cow darken as they reach 



