IO8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



1903, five young musk ox were landed at Tromsoe, 

 Norway. 



The acclimatization of the musk ox in Sweden, 

 if not in the north of Scotland, has been suggested. 

 Such an experiment would be extremely interesting ; 

 for it would restore to its original habitat a 

 beast which has been extinct in Europe since 

 the Glacial Epoch. From a sentimental point of 

 view it would be thrilling to as it were set 

 back the clock for centuries, repeopling Northern 

 Europe with a vanished race ; truly would the 

 Highlands be ornamented with these rugged 

 colonists, besides which red deer and roebuck would 

 seem tame indeed I 1 From an economic point of 

 view also something might be done, since stockings 

 made in France many years ago from musk ox wool 

 were said to be equal to those of silk. Musk ox 

 wool is remarkably strong and fine ; a single musk 

 ox yields as much as twenty sheep. 



Let us picture the musk ox as it lived in 

 Britain in the Pleistocene Epoch. Scene, a great 

 valley sheeted in white and damp with mist. Here 

 and there masses of rock, glittering with icicles and 

 obscured by a scrubby tangle of snow-laden bushes, 

 dot the landscape at irregular intervals. Dim in the 

 distance pine woods climb the rugged mountain 

 sides to the very skyline. An immense herd of 



1. In December, 1903, one male and two female musk oxen were living 

 practically at liberty in Norrland, Sweden, on pasture closely resembling 

 that of Greenland. 



