.] Allen, Musk-Oxen of Arctic America and Greenland. 79 



illustrations render it certain that the Independence Bay Musk- 

 Oxen closely resemble the Musk-Oxen of Bache Peninsula. 



The Nares Expedition found numerous recent traces of Musk- 

 Oxen on the northern shore of Ellesmere Land, just south of 

 Bache Peninsula, in 1875, and living Musk-Oxen at various 

 points along the eastern coast of Grinnell Land ( Narr. Voy. to 

 the Polar Sea, Vols. I and II, 1878, passim, and Vol. II, pp. 198- 

 202 a summary by Lieut. Feilden ) ; while Greely (Three 

 Years of Arctic Service, Vols. I and II, L&86, passim, and Vol. II, 

 pp. 360-363, summary ) found them extensively distributed over 

 Grinnell Land ; yet little has been made known respecting the 

 animals beyond some observations on their habits and localities 

 of occurrence. In Nares' ' Narrative ' ( Vol. I, p. 113 ) is a cut, 

 * Head of Musk-Ox ', which shows very well the narrowness of 

 the base of the horns, but nothing apparently of the coloration. 

 In Greely's ' Three Years of Arctic Service' (Vol. I, facing p. 

 104) is an engraving from a photograph of a 'Musk-Ox killed 

 near Fort Conger ', showing imperfectly the base of the horns, 

 but no cplor effects ; and there is a woodcut (/. c., p. 363) of 

 ' Musk-Calves at Conger, Four Months Old ', from a photograph. 

 If specimens were collected on any of these expeditions they have 

 apparently remained undescribed. 



The first intimation that either the Grinnell Land or the 

 Greenland Musk-Oxen differed in any way from the Barren 

 Ground stock appears to have been given by Mr. Lydekker in a 

 recent article in ' Knowledge ' (Vol. XXIII, No. 176, June, 1900, 

 pp. 137-139), in which appears an illustration, from a photo- 

 graph, of a young male captured in August, 1899, " in Clavering 

 Island, situated off the coast of East Greenland, opposite Konig 

 Wilhelm Land, in about latitude 74.5 N." In reference to this 

 he says : " But there is one respect in which the Clavering Island 

 calves 1 differ from the adult specimens exhibited in the British 

 Museum, as well as from the descriptions generally given of the 

 species. This is the presence of a large patch of white hair on the 

 forehead, as well as of an ill-defined white streak down each side 

 of the face, and some scattered white hairs in the middle line be- 

 tween the muzzle and the eyes. When this feature was first no- 



1 The calf when photographed must have been a ' yearling,' and hence not in first pelage, 

 in which there is no indication of the future white face-spot. See antea, p. 72. 



