356 THE ZOOLOGIS'. 
ice as the passage now is between Banks’ Land and Melville Island, 
there could have been no great obstacle to prevent the passage of 
the Musk-ox from the Old World to the New; but whether its 
course of migration was from Asia to America, or contrariwise, 
there can be no question that on the latter continent it found a 
congenial home. Its remains have been discovered in greater or less 
quantities from Escholtz Bay on the west to the shores of Lancaster 
Sound, whilst the animal still inhabits the Barren-lands of the 
American continent. Even in this wilderness, sparsely inhabited 
by Eskimo, its southern range is slowly contracting, whilst, 
according to Richardson, the Mackenzie is now its western limit. 
Melville Island and other lands to the north of the American 
continent have proved a safe asylum to the Musk-ox, and there it 
will continue to propagate its species, undisturbed save by the 
casual appearance of Arctic voyagers. From the islands of the 
Parry group its range northwards across the eightieth parallel into 
Ellesmere and Grinnell Land, as high as the eighty-third parallel 
to the shores of the Polar Sea, is extremely natural; and Robeson 
Channel, which has presented no obstacle to the progress of the 
Lemming and Ermine, has also been crossed by the Musk-ox, the 
‘Polaris’ Expedition as well as ours finding it in Hall Land. 
After crossing the strait between the American islands, and Green- 
land, the Musk-ox appears to have followed the coasts both in a 
northerly and southerly direction, its range in Greenland to the 
southward being stopped by the great glaciers of Melville Bay. 
At one time it must have been abundant on the West Greenland 
coast as far south as the seventy-eighth parallel, for Dr. Kane 
found numerous remains in the vicinity of Renssellaer Bay, and 
Dr. Hayes found a skull in Chester Valley at the head of Foulke 
Fiord. During the single day we explored in the neighbourhood 
of that locality two skulls were found by members of our Ex- 
pedition. The destruction of these animals would, | think, rapidly 
follow on the appearance of the Eskimo at Port Foulke; for 
I imagine few animals are less fitted to elude the wiles of the 
hunter. There can be no question that the Musk-oxen found by 
the Germans on the east coast of Greenland are descendants of 
those that crossed Robeson Channel, rounded the north of the 
Greenland continent, and extended their range southward until 
they met with some physical obstruction that barred their further 
progress, as has also been the case on the western shore of 
