334 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



area and especially the horns are much lighter in color" (J. A. 

 Allen, 1913). Tables of cranial measurements for this and 

 other races of the muskox are given by the latter author. 



The range of the white-faced muskox occupies "a narrow 

 coast belt of Greenland from about latitude 70 on the east 

 side north as far as land extends, and thence southward along 

 the west coast to about 81, and within historic times as far 

 south as Westenholme Sound (latitude 78), where its further 

 progress south appears to have been checked by impassable 

 glaciers. It formerly occupied practically the whole Arctic 

 Archipelago from Grant Land and Ellesmere Land westward 

 to Prince Patrick Island and south to Lancaster Sound and 

 Coronation Gulf. Thus it must have nearly met the range of 

 niphoecus on the mainland west of the Gulf of Boothia, and 

 the range of moschatus thence westward to Coronation Gulf 

 and Dolphin and Union Strait . . . They have been ex- 

 terminated from the greater part of Victoria Island, including 

 Victoria Land, Wollaston Land, and part of Prince Albert 

 Land. Hundreds have been killed on Melville Island, and 

 thousands in northern Ellesmere Land, Grinnell Land, and 

 Grant Land, mainly by explorers for the support of their dogs 

 and men. They are found in* winter as well as in summer on 

 the most northern known land, being in no sense migratory" 

 (J. A. Allen, 1913). 



On Banks Island muskoxen were formerly numerous, for 

 there was much good pasturage there. They were extermi- 

 nated, however, by the Eskimos, who killed entire bands, 

 utilizing little of the meat. The latest record given by Miss 

 Hone (1934) is of a band killed by Eskimos in the spring of 

 1911. At the present time the muskox is said to be extinct on 

 this island. On Victoria Island there were formerly "plenty" 

 in the little- visited northern part, and there are reports of them 

 having been killed as recently as 1924 (Hone, 1934) ; the stock 

 is, however, apparently small. Prince of Wales Island, at 

 least within a few years, held a population of muskoxen that 

 Anderson estimated at 1,500. They were present on Somerset 

 Island in the middle of the last century but are now gone. 

 Melville Island was the first of the Arctic islands where musk- 

 oxen were found; Parry in 1819-20 reported them "in con- 

 siderable numbers." Storkersen in 1916 estimated that there 

 were about four thousand on this island. They occur also on 



