NORTHERN OCEAN 165 



with a strong gale of wind at North East, and very cold rain 1771. 

 and sleet. -^^' 



This was the first time we had seen any of the musk-oxen 

 since we left the Factory. It has been observed that we saw 

 a great number of them in my first unsuccessful attempt, 

 before I had got an hundred miles from the Factory ; and 

 indeed I once perceived the tracks of two of those animals 

 within nine miles of Prince of Wales's Fort. Great numbers 

 of them also were met with in my second journey to the 

 North : several of which my companions killed, particularly 

 on the seventeenth of July one thousand seven hundred and 

 seventy. They are also found at times in considerable num- 

 bers near the sea-coast of Hudson's Bay, [136] all the way from 

 Knapp's Bay to Wager Water, but are most plentiful within 

 the Arctic Circle. In those high latitudes I have frequently 

 seen many herds of them in the course of a day's walk, and 

 some of those herds did not contain less than eighty or an 

 hundred head. The number of bulls is very few in pro- 

 portion to the cows ; for it is rare to see more than two or 

 three full-grown bulls with the largest herd : and from the 

 number of the males that are found dead, the Indians are of 

 opinion that they kill each other in contending for the females. 

 In the rutting season they are so jealous of the cows, that they 

 run at either man or beast who offers to approach them ; and 

 have been observed to run and bellow even at ravens, and 

 other large birds, which chanced to light near them. They 

 delight in the most stony and mountainous parts of the barren 

 ground, and are seldom found at any great distance from the 

 woods. Though they are a beast of great magnitude, and ap- 

 parently of a very unwieldy inactive structure, yet they climb 

 the rocks with great ease and agility, and are nearly as sure-footed 

 as a goat : like it too, they will feed on any thing ; though they 

 seem fondest of grass, yet in Winter, when that article cannot 

 be had in sufficient quantity, they will eat moss, or any other 

 herbage they can find, as also the tops of willows and the 



