p 



DOMESTICATION OF RUMINATING MAMMALS 311 



acteristics which suggest its possible value as a domesticated, 

 or semi-domesticated animal, but which has not yet been 

 tried in the service of man except as a source of wild meat, 

 and this is the musk-ox. Doctor W. T. Homaday has called 

 my attention to one attempt to colonize this animal on new 

 territory, which took place in July, 1903, when three musk-ox 

 calves, two females and one male, were transported from 

 Greenland and turned loose at Norrland, Sweden, in a lo- 

 cality closely resembhng their native habitat, but they all 

 died. The first suggestion regarding the possible domesti- 

 cation of the musk-ox appears to have been made by Pro- 

 fessor S. F. Baird, in 1854, in an article on the native rumi- 

 nating animals of North America and their susceptibility 

 to domestication.* He wrote: 



It is not probable that the musk-ox could stand the warmth of the 

 climate of the United States, although the experiment would be well 

 worth trying. The hair is very long and silky, and has been occasionally 

 worked into articles of dress. Could it be obtained in sufficient quan- 

 tity, there is no doubt of its being of exceedingly great value in the arts. 

 Unfortunately, this species, like the barren-ground reindeer, does not oc- 

 cur within the hmits of the United States, and the experiment of domes- 

 tication, as well as of economical application in general, must be tried, 

 if at all, by the Hudson's Bay Company. To the best of our knowledge, 

 there is not a single specimen of the musk-ox in any museum of the 

 United States; probably not even a portion of the skin or bone. 



A definite proposal, however, to utilize the musk-ox as a 

 domestic animal was made by Mr. V. Stefansson, in 1916, 

 as a result of his observations on the habits and value of the 

 musk-ox in Melville Island. This proposal was embodied 

 in a report to the Department of the Naval Service, and 

 Mr. Stefansson has revised for me his statement since his 

 return from the Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1918. The 

 following is Mr. Stefansson's report: 



♦ "Pictorial Geography of the World," by E. S. Goodrich, vol. II, pp. 39-40. 



