IO4 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



district by some natives, who brought it to the 

 Commissioner ; unfortunately, it presently died 

 poisoned, it was supposed, by eating aconite plants. 

 Inhabiting the icy wildernesses of the North, the 

 musk ox wanders in herds of eighty or a hundred 

 individuals, feeding like reindeer on mosses and 

 lichens, and climbing the rocky hills with remarkable 

 ease. 1 In spring, the animals are in poor condition; 

 during the summer, however, they frequent the 

 valleys, and browse on the leaves of stunted willows, 

 so that by winter they are fat and lusty. In summer 

 the loose undercoat is shed in patches, and may be 

 seen hanging in untidy wisps on twigs and bushes. 

 Fearing no enemy save the Arctic wolf, the musk 

 ox is amongst the most unwary of big game animals; 

 the regions it inhabits beingpermanently occupied only 

 by Esquimaux, whose primitive weapons make little 

 impression on the shaggy herds. Indian and white 

 hunters are limited by the tree-line ; fuel must be 

 cut beforehand and laden on sledges, the hunters 

 depending on caribou deer for meat until they can 

 reach the musk oxen. Hence in this region of 

 intense cold the present species enjoys a considerable 

 amount of natural protection ; as for the weather it 

 defies it, warmly clad in its great overcoat as it 

 wanders over the dreary landscape. One readily 



1. So great is the activity of these clumsy-looking beasts that Sir 

 John Richardson notes that one individual readily scaled a steep sand- 

 cliff on the Coppermine River, up which the party were obliged to crawl 

 on hands and Knees ! 



