Arctic Animals 163 
numbers, when pressed by hunger, may be. Wolf-skin is one of the warmest skins 
known, second probably only to remdeer-skin. Its high price, however, renders the use 
of reindeer-skin far more common. 
Musk-Oxen now exist only in a few very remote spots in the Arctic regions. 
The Nares Expedition found them in Grinnell Land, Peary at the extreme north-east 
point of Greenland. They also exist in some numbers along the east coast of Greenland 
and along the shores of Arctic America. A bull weighs about 300 Ibs.. stands about 
3 ft. 6 im. high, and is a dull brown in colour. They are easily killed, and when 
attacked commonly cluster together and form up with their heads towards the foe—a 
plan of defence which avails them little against the rifle. Nares records that one of 
his expedition even killed one with a knife, not having a eun handy. 
The Scandinavian Elk would rapidly become extinct but for the protection afforded 
it by the Government of Norway and Sweden, where very stringent laws are in force 
for its preservation. Only during a few weeks m the year can it be hunted, and 
even then only a limited number may be killed in each district. The Moose is the 
American counterpart of the European elk. It is the largest of the deer, and is very 
difficult to stalk on account of 
its extreme wariness. 
The Arctic Hare is only 
white in winter, changing from 
its brown summer coat in the 
late autumn to white—the only 
remnant of colour remaiming 
bemg the black tips to the 
ears. No one who has never 
seen Arctic haves in their winter 
coat can credit how extremely 
ditficult they are to see on the 
snow, for unlike the polar bear, 
they are a pure white. They 
live in burrows in the snow 
during the winter, only coming 
out to feed. 
The Ermine has a_ very 
wide distribution. The majority 
of ermine-skins which reach 
this country come from northern Russia, where these skins are little valued and 
sell as low as eight kopecks apiece, and when I travelled across the Great Tundra 
country to the south of Waigatz in 1893, I could have bought numbers at even a 
lower price of the Samoyads and Russian peasants. It is, in fact, a poor skin with 
short, thin hair. Its use for ages past by royal personages has apparently given it a 
value it does not deserve. 
The last of the Arctic mammals that I shall mention are the members of the great 
Whale family. The most valuable and one of the largest of these monsters is the 
Greenland Right Whale, from which the whalebone of commerce is obtained. It has 
in addition deep layers of blubber under the skin twelve or fourteen or more inches 
in thickness in many parts of the body. The whalebone is obtained in the form of 
plates set close together in the mouth, and as much as twelve feet in length. On 
the imner edge is a hairy fringe which forms a kind of network and enables the 
whale when swimming with its mouth open to enclose its minute animal food, which 
the whalers call “rice food” owing to its resemblance to a grain of rice. At one 
bodes TREC ASS + NE 
Photograph by J. Madsen. 
YOUNG SCANDINAVIAN ELK. 
