THE GAME ANIMALS OF CANADA 93 



considerable size, Seton having killed a very large old bull 

 in August, 1907, on the north shore of Aylmer Lake, where 

 it had undoubtedly wandered from the more northern terri- 

 tory inhabited by this animal. The bull was estimated to 

 weigh 900 pounds. Its total length was 96 inches, and its 

 height at shoulder 59 inches. 



Economic Value as Furbearer. — The possession of a large 

 and valuable pelt by the musk-ox led to the destruction by 

 the Eskimos, Indians, and white traders of every musk-ox 

 that could be reached, and the gregarious habits of the 

 animal brought about a speedy reduction in its numbers. 

 Roderick MacFarlane, a former chief factor of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company, who has contributed so much to our 

 knowledge of the animals of the north, gives an account of 

 the trade in musk-ox skins. He states: 



The Company's posts at which musk-ox skins are usually traded are 

 Fort MacPherson (from the Eastern Coast Eskimos); Forts Good Hope 

 and Norman (from the Anderson Eskimos and from post Indians who 

 hunt them) ; Rae and Resolution on Great Slave Lake (from Indian hunt- 

 ers); Lac du Brochet, Reindeer Lake (from inland Eskimos); and Fort 

 ChurchiU (from the Hudson Bay Eskimos). It is only in recent years, 

 however, that the Company has strongly encouraged the hunting of 

 musk-oxen, and although there is no record of the sale of any in the 

 London Statement, 1853-1877, yet we know that a number of pelts were 

 occasionally, if not annually, traded at Forts Churchill and Anderson, 

 at least subsequent to 1860, and that they must have been sold there or 

 in Montreal (the British Company's market for buffalo robes) as the 

 statement of the northern department fur returns for outfit 1865, . . . 

 shows that the districts of Mackenzie River and York, Hudson Bay, 

 collected 26 and 66 musk-ox skins, respectively, in that year. During 

 the last thirty years, the Indians and Eskimos have devoted more 

 attention than before to the hunting of this valuable animal. In 1902, 

 271 skins and in 1903, 246 skins were exposed for sale, and the average 

 for the past twenty years probably ranged between 200 and 250 pelts. 

 The greater portion of those secured by the Company are purchased in 

 London and re-shipped to and used in Canada and the United States, 

 chiefly as sleigh and cutter winter robes. 



