252 MUSK ox. 



served, and some were gladdened by it when all 

 around was uncertainty and gloom. 



We have spoken elsewhere of the genus Cato- 

 blepas, a race confined to Central and Southern 

 Africa, living in herds upon the desert, and seeming 

 as regardless of shade and water as the ostrich and 

 wild guacha. North America produces animals that 

 resemble them in many particulars, wanting, indeed, 

 the mane and beard, but equally slender in the 

 limbs, and exhibiting some characteristics which 

 Pliny notices as peculiar to the gnoo. A stuffed 

 specimen of Musk ox, when the woolly hair is de- 

 stroyed, might be mistaken for a large gnoo in a 

 similar condition, but an immense distance inter- 

 venes between them. High latitudes bestow their 

 usual woolly covering on the former: an unknown 

 local cause which deprives several northern animals, 

 especially the ruminating kinds, of the usual length 

 of tail, also acts upon the musk ox, and its body is 

 much heavier and somewhat lower on the limbs 

 than that of the catoblepas. 



We have reason to conclude that this species 

 once inhabited the north-eastern portion of Asia; 

 perhaps they even now exist in the unvisited parts 

 of that extensive region; but their favourite resort 

 is to the north-west of Churchill river, in the 

 Hudson Bay country, though occasionally descend- 

 ing as far southward as the province of Guiavira. 

 They prefer mountainous and unwooded places to 

 the forest, and climb with ease the most precipitous 

 rocks. One might almost fancy that they scorned 



