ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1445 



THREE RARE SPECIMENS FROM ALASKA 



Skull of musk-ox. and fossil teeth of mammoth and mastodon. The smaller tooth is that of the mastodon. 



THREE RARE SPECIMENS FROM 

 ALASKA. 



THE SOCIETY'S esteemed correspondent 

 at the most northerly point of Alaska^ 

 Mr. Charles D. B rower, has again con- 

 tributed substantially to our knowledge of the 

 mammalian life that inhabited that region in 

 prehistoric times. In Bulletin No. 45 (May, 

 1911), we published a letter from Mr. Brow- 

 er, proving the existence of the Barren Ground 

 musk-ox as far west as the longitude of Point 

 Barrow, within comparatively recent years. A 

 little later on, Mr. Brower sent to the Society a 

 musk-ox horn, and a piece of musk-ox skin cov- 

 ered with hair. 



In 1915 Mr. Brower sent to the Zoological 

 Park collection of Heads and Horns, a masto- 

 don tooth in an excellent state of preservation, 

 from the Kooloogama River, about ninety miles 

 southeast of Point Barrow. It is so fresh and 

 recent that it appears to be post-glacial. 



In December, 1916, the Society received from 

 Mr. Brower another gift consisting of a musk- 

 ox skull, and a mammoth tooth of large pro- 



portions, very well preserved. The latter was 

 found in the same locality that produced the 

 mastodon molar, proving that the mammoth and 

 mastodon lived at the northern limit of land in 

 Alaska practically at the same period of geo- 

 logic time. We are in the habit of thinking of 

 the mastodon as an animal of the United States, 

 and not of the far north, and it requires an ef- 

 fort of the imagination to locate it in the frozen 

 north, on the shore of the polar sea, beside the 

 great hairy mammoth, who was quite at home 

 in the abode of snow and ice. 



The musk-ox skull is quite as fresh-looking 

 as any of the American bison skulls that still 

 are found at rare intervals in the western bad 

 lands, foothills, and even upon some of the 

 mountains bordering the Great Plains. Its low- 

 er jaw is missing, but the horns are intact save 

 for one tip that has been sawn off with a very 

 blunt instrument. The operator made a start 

 toward sawing off the terminal half of the other 

 horn, but changed his mind and his work, very 

 opportunely for our specimen. 



This skull appears to have been weathering 

 for not more than thirty years. — JV. T. H. 



