No. II. MAMMALIA. 201 



month of May, Lieutenant Egerton and I came across fresh 

 tracks of this animal in soft snow, through which it had sunk 

 belly-deep, ploughing out a path, and leaving fragments of 

 wool behind in its struggles. Its progression under such 

 circumstances is similar to that of a snow-plough. We 

 noticed that spots on hill-sides where the snow lay only a few 

 inches deep had been selected for feeding grounds, the snow 

 having been pushed away in furrows banked up at the end, 

 as if the head and horns of the animal had been used for the 

 task ; a few blades of grass and roots of willow showed on 

 what they had been feeding. The dung of the musk-ox, 

 though usually dropped in pellets like sheep or deer, is very 

 often undistinguishable from that of the genus Bos. No 

 person, however, watching this animal in a state of nature, 

 could fail to see how essentially ovine are its actions. When 

 alarmed they gather together like a flock of sheep herded by 

 a collie dog, and the way in which they pack closely together 

 and follow blindly the vacillating leadership of the old ram 

 is unquestionably sheep-like. When thoroughly frightened 

 they take to the hills, ascending precipitous slopes, and 

 scaling rocks with great agility. How the musk-ox obtains 

 food during the long Arctic night is very extraordinary ; but 

 that it is a resident throughout the year cannot be doubted, 

 as a month after the reappearance of sunlight, in the end of 

 March, and at the very coldest season of the year, we found 

 the fresh traces of these animals in the vicinity of our winter- 

 quarters. I am quite sure that the number of musk-oxen in 

 Grinnell Land is extremely limited, whilst the means of 

 subsistence can only supply the wants of a fixed number; 

 consequently, after an invasion such as ours, when every 

 animal obtainable was slaughtered for food, it must take 

 some years to restock the ground. The cause of the dis- 

 agreeable odour which frequently taints the flesh of these 

 animals has received no elucidation from my observations. 

 It does not appear to be confined to either sex, or to any 

 particular season of the year ; for a young unweaned animal 

 killed at its mother's side, and transferred within an hour 



