220 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



THE MUSK-OX 



THE MUSK-OX was formerly 

 found in immense numbers on 

 the barren lands and other regions 

 bordering on the Arctic ice. The 

 hair of this animal reaches almost 

 to the ground, and the horns are 

 large and massive. At present it 

 is only common in the corner of 

 North America north and east of 

 a line drawn from Fort Churchill, 

 on Hudson Bay, to the mouth of 

 the Mackenzie, and on the adjacent 

 islands of the Arctic Sea. In 

 former Arctic expeditions'the flesh 

 of the musk-oxen was a great 

 and reliable source of food. Now 

 some pw'ts of the herds seem to 

 have retired inland, and in the 

 winter to become mainly forest- 

 dwellers ; but large numbers seem 

 to endure the coldest parts of the 

 Arctic winter in the open country 

 of the Far North, in the snows 

 of Grinnell Land and of Northern 

 Greenland. The remains of musk- 

 oxen have been found in the river 

 gravels of the Thames Valley, with 

 those of the reindeer and other 

 northern species. The musk-ox 



gallops at a great rate of speed when disturbed in the open, and makes as little of a steep 

 mountain-side as does the wild sheep. When fat, the flesh is very tolerable food ; but if the 

 animals grow thin, the taste of musk is very unpleasant. The colour of the coat is dark 

 brown ; it is now in great demand for sledge-rugs in Canada. This remarkable animal appears 

 to be a form standing apart both from the oxen and the sheep. 



* 



IT will be seen from the above accounts of the whole wild bovine race that they all exhibit 

 in a high degree many of the traits which are' seen in domesticated animals of the same 

 tribe. The chief differences made by man's selection and breeding affect the form of the body 

 and the development of the udder, otherwise there is no great modification, except the production 

 of the drooping ear in some of the Indian species of domesticated oxen. No wild cattle have 

 the level, flat back and rectangular body which mark all the best shorthorns and other breeds 

 intended for beef. In the Asiatic and Galla humped breeds, the races which first domesticated 

 the original wild species seem to have used the long processes of the vertebrae which cause 

 the back of many wild cattle to form a hump as the basis of a valuable feature, the hump 

 becoming as it were another joint of meat. The development of the udder has for untold 

 centuries been the object of the breeders of cows ; consequently we find that in the domesticated 

 races this has become abnormally large. There is at present a very general tendency to get 

 rid of the horns among all breeds of high quality, as these appendages cause much loss by 

 wounds inflicted by cattle upon each other ; but even in this respect sentiment rather tends to 

 preserve the horns as an ornament in some of the best milking breeds, such as the Jerseys. 



YOUNG BULL MUSK-OX 



The musk-ox is nearly allied to the sheep. It is about the size of Highland cattle, and 

 inhabits Arctic America and Northern Greenland 



