MUSK-OXEN IN ENGLAND 289 



river-valleys, such as those of the Thames and Severn, as 

 well as in the brick-earths of Kent. It is also probable 

 that they occur in the " forest-bed" of the Norfolk coast, 

 which somewhat antedates the great glaciation of Britain. 



This being so, it is evident that the musk-ox was a 

 living British animal within the period during which our 

 islands have been inhabited by man, for in many of the 

 deposits in which its remains occur flint implements and 

 other evidences of human presence are likewise found. 

 Probably, indeed, the early human inhabitants of Britain 

 not infrequently made a meal of musk-ox beef; but the 

 disappearance of the animal from the British fauna may 

 apparently be attributed rather to a change in climatic 

 conditions than to pursuit by man. 



From that long-distant day when the last indigenous 

 British musk-ox departed this life no living representative 

 of the species appears to have been brought to our islands 

 till the autumn of 1899, when a couple of young bulls were 

 added to the collection of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn 

 Abbey. These were captured in August in Clavering Island, 

 situated off the coast of East Greenland, opposite Konig 

 Wilhelm Land, about latitude 74 5' N. When they arrived 

 they were about the size of a rather large sheep, but by 

 March of the following year the solitary survivor had 

 increased considerably in size, although the horns were then 

 only just visible above the long hairs of the sides of the 

 forehead. 



Probably most of my readers are more or less familiar 

 with the general appearance of the adult musk-ox ; but 

 those who are not would do well to turn to its portrait 

 as shown opposite next page, or, still better, to pay a 

 visit to the British Museum at South Kensington, where 

 both the mounted skin and the skeleton are exhibited. The 



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