MUSK OX 429 



musk ox of to-day, and give a short account of the manner in 

 which many of them are annually killed by the Northern Indians. 

 Whoever invented the word ovibos to classify the musk ox 

 hit the nail squarely on the head, and this single word de- 

 scribes so exactly the strange mixture of sheep and bull that 

 there is little left to be said upon the subject. I am indebted 

 to Messrs. Rowland Ward & Co. for the following dimensions, 

 which were taken from an adult bull, not a particularly large 

 one, but a fair average specimen : 



ft. ins. 



Length from nose to tip of tail . . . 60 



Height from ground to shoulder ... 4 2 



Height from ground to top of rump . . 310 



Height from ground to belly . . . " . i 10 



Round body over hair 5 9i 



Depth of base of horn \ \\ 



Length of hair under neck . . . . i 10 



Length of hair under belly .... i o 



The long hair is never shed, but underneath it lies a thick 

 fleece, which comes off every year and hangs in sheets from the 

 rocks and small bushes against which the animals have been 

 rubbing ; and herein lies the distinction between a prime musk- 

 ox robe and one killed out of season. The hair varies from 

 brown to black in different parts of the body, but a saddle of 

 light yellow shows up very conspicuously in the middle of the 

 back. The cows are smaller than the bulls, and their horns 

 never grow together into the solid boss that is to be seen in 

 the case of a bull at the age of six years. In the young, the 

 horns grow straight out from the head after the manner of a 

 barn-yard calf, and do not show the downward curve till the 

 second year. 



The present range of the musk ox is limited to the North 

 American continent and the outlying islands in the Arctic 

 Ocean ; it is perhaps best defined as lying to the north and 

 east of a line drawn from the mouth of the Mackenzie river 

 to Fort Churchill on Hudson Bay. Latitude 60 is generally 



