THE MUSK-OX. f>r,7 



But if the Polar Flora offers few details of interest, it is otherwise 

 with the Polar Fauna. The most important orders of the Animal 

 Kingdom, and particularly of the class Mammalia, are there repre- 

 sented by species not less worthy of attention than those that people 

 the savage countries of the torrid and temperate zones. 



Among the Rufmnantia we may mention the Eland and the 

 Stag of Canada, which range the former in the Old and New 

 Continents, the latter in the New World only to a very high 

 latitude ; but, to confine myself to the characteristic species of the 

 Hyperborean Fauna, I shall here speak only of the Musk-Ox and the 

 Reindeer. 



The Musk-Ox, or Ovibos (Ovibos Mosckatus'), is, as its zoolo- 

 gical name indicates, an intermediate animal between the ox and 

 the sheep. Smaller than the former, larger than the latter, he 

 reminds us equally of both in his form and appearance. He has an 

 obtuse nose ; horns broad at the base, covering the forehead and 

 crown of the head, and curving downwards between the eye and ear 

 until about the level of the mouth, where they turn upwards ; the 

 tail is short, and almost lost in the thickness of the hair, which is 

 generally of a dark brown, and of two kinds, as with all the animals 

 of Polar regions, a long hair, which on some parts of the body is 

 thick and curled, and, beneath it, a fine kind of soft, ash-coloured 

 wool ; the legs are short and thick, and furnished with narrow hoofs, 

 resembling those of the moose. The female is smaller than the male, 

 and has also smaller horns. Her general colour is black, except that 

 the legs are whitish ; and along the back runs an elevated ridge or 

 mane of dusky hair. 



The musk-ox, as might be inferred from his name, exhales a 

 strong odour of musk, with which his very flesh is impregnated, and 

 which communicates itself to the knife employed in cutting him up. 

 Not the less is he esteemed a precious prey by the Indians and 

 Eskimos, who hunt him actively. He wanders in small herds over 

 the rocky prairies which stretch to the north of the great lakes of 



