ACROSS ELLESMERE LAND. 127 



and once I saw them make attacks to a distance of a hundred 

 yards. The remaining oxen always cover the gap in the square, 

 but immediately make room for their comrade when he returns 

 from his round. Now and then, when the fight is a long one, 

 they stop to breathe, and then begin again with renewed vigour. 

 The greatest degree of precision is attained by oxen of the 

 same age. Like old combatants, they seem thoroughly to enjoy 

 defending themselves, and appreciate the sporting element in 

 it. I have seen herds of as many as thirty animals form a 

 square, with the calves and heifers in the middle, and the bulls 

 and cows standing in line of defence at distances as equal as 

 the points on the face of a compass. When the defence forces of 

 the line were no longer available, the reserve was mobilized ; right 

 down to two-year-old heifers. In such circumstances, of course, 

 the movements were not earned out so regularly, and the discipline 

 was less absolute. I noticed that sometimes the regular old 

 fighters of the herd formed themselves into a kind of outpost, at 

 twenty or twenty-five yards' distance from the square. This was 

 partly with a view to defence, to take the first brush with the 

 enemy, but also, no doubt, to have a good fight on their own 

 account. It sometimes happened that the whole herd first formed 

 in a square, and that then one or two fighting giants would walk 

 out to the outposts' line ; but, as a rule, their order of attack 

 was evidently planned from the first. When once the animals 

 had formed into square, they remained at their posts until the 

 attack was repulsed, or the entire square fallen. I have myself 

 seen the last-standing ox make his sortie and then return to his 

 fallen comrades. In cases where the oxen "had to defend them- 

 selves against a single enemy they would sometimes form up in 

 a long fighting-line, without cover on the flanks, and then stood 

 forehead to forehead, and horns to horns. 



Their mode of defence is, on the whole, absolutely equal to the 

 attack of any brute assailant existing in these regions, whether it 

 be bears or wolves. One asks one's self involuntarily what animal 

 can have developed their strategic reasoning powers in such an 

 admirable manner. The polar bear it cannot be, for it does not 

 appear in numbers together ; its habitat is the drift-ice rather than 



