Canadian Musk-Ox 311 



sole existing representative of the genus Ovibos ; and yet this expression 

 perhaps best conveys the real state of the case, namely, that it is a more 

 or less isolated member of the ruminant group, coming under the 

 designation neither ot an ox nor a sheep, nor yet being a connecting link 

 between the two. Under these circumstances it would be much better 

 if the name "musk-ox" could be dropped altogether, and (unless it be 

 altogether unpronounceable) its native Greenland equivalent adopted 

 instead. Unfortunately, however, the writer has hitherto been unable to 

 ascertain by what name the creature is known to the Greenlanders. 



Although now restricted to Greenland and Arctic America eastward 

 of the Mackenzie River, the musk-ox was formerly a circumpolar animal, 

 its remains being occasionally met with in the interior of Alaska, more 

 commonly in the frozen cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay, and also in the ice- 

 bound soil of the Lena and the Yenisei valleys. The musk-ox is unknown 

 in Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen, but extends polewards through Parry 

 Island and Grinnell Land into North Greenland, where its northward 

 range is probably only limited by the limits ot vegetation. South 

 Greenland at the present day is, however, too hot for such a cold-loving 

 beast, and Melville Bay now forms the southernmost point to which it 

 wanders on the west coast. Consequently it would seem probable that 

 the musk-oxen on the west coast are isolated from those on the eastern 

 seaboard ; the central mountain range of the interior of Greenland being 

 apparently impassable even by such hardy animals, while a transit via 

 Cape Farewell is, as we have seen, barred by climatic conditions of an 

 opposite nature. 



In America, however, the musk-ox still ranges considerably farther 

 south, its limits in this direction being approximately formed by the 6oth 

 parallel of north latitude ; but it is stated that year by year its southern 

 range is slowly contracting — possibly owing to pursuit by man. When the 

 musk-ox ceased to be an inhabitant of the Siberian tundra, or why it should 



