146 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



It was while his steam whaler Beluga was win- 

 tering in the neighborhood of Cape Bathhurst that 

 a party of the captain's Eskimo hunters ventured 

 inland about thirty miles to a point north of Great 

 Bear Lake and there captured 



THE FIRST LIVE MUSK-OX 



ever seen in New York. Indeed the flat-faced, 

 fur-clad hunters captured four live musk-ox 

 "calves," if their parents belong to the ox family, 

 or "lambs," if it is decided that the musk-ox is a 

 sheep. But whatever the position in which scientists 

 may finally decide to place these queer northern 

 animals it cannot be denied that they were young 

 ones. 



The wolfish dogs belonging to the Eskimos 

 killed two of the captives before the thirty miles 

 had been traveled necessary to reach the ship and 

 on board the ship the same wolfish animals killed 

 another, leaving only 



ONE SURVIVOR, 



which was exhibited in November, 1901, in San 

 Francisco, from there it went to Chicago, thence 

 to New York, where I found it in a cage at the 

 Sportsmen's Show, and where William C. Whit- 

 ney paid $1,600 for it and then generously pre- 

 sented it to the New York Zoological Park, where 

 it died. 



At the present writing only three specimens of 

 the mu$k-ox have ever reached civilization. In 



