86 The Musk-ox 



seen near the Mackenzie River. From time to 

 time statements find their way into print of a 

 musk-ox found in Alaska. Such misleading 

 information is based on the tales of traders who 

 may perhaps have got a musk-ox skin at some 

 Alaskan post. Mr. Andrew J. Stone, who has 

 spent several years in the Far North collecting 

 for the Museum of Natural History, and who 

 knows Alaska and all that great stretch of coun- 

 try west of the Mackenzie River thoroughly, has 

 covered this question in a statement published 

 in an American Museum bulletin in 1901. It 

 touches finally upon a question much agitated, 

 and it seems to me sufficiently important to 

 make permanent record here. Therefore I 

 reproduce it. 



AS TO THE WESTERN RANGE OF MUSK-OXEN. 



Febr'y 28, 1901. 

 MY DEAR DR. ALLEN : 



In response to your inquiry in reference to the existence of 

 the musk-ox {Ovibos moschatus) west of the Mackenzie River, 

 or in Alaska, I will state there are none of these animals in any 

 part of Arctic America west of the Mackenzie. Previous to 

 my departure for the North in the spring of 1897, I had for 

 several years carefully searched for information upon this sub- 

 ject, and from what I had gathered I had a faint hope of 

 finding some of these animals in the mountains west of the 



