178 Nort,-Miy;ratio7i. 



moments ol' this matchless denizen of these iiorlhern wilds. A 

 mile or two farther we saw four milch cow and a very small calf." 



It appears to be doubtful whether the wolf, naturally a most 

 cowan 11 creature, is able to act in any way offensively against the 

 musk oxen ; the geuejal impression amongst the naval officers 

 employed in localities where a good opinion upon the subject 

 could be formed, was, that the wolf would only attack the lame or 

 sickly cattle. 



The activity of these oxen, and goat-like power of climbing, is 

 very lemarkable, and much at variance with their clumsv appear- 

 ance. They Lave been seen making their way, when fi'ightened, 

 up the face of a cliff which defied all human efforts to follow them, 

 and going down the precipitous sides of ravines by alternately 

 sliding upon their hams or pitching and arresting their downward 

 course by the use of the magnificent shield of horn which spreads 

 across their foreheads, in a manner to call forth the astonishment 

 of the beholder. ' 



4. Non-migration of the Arctic fauna. — It will not here 

 be out of place to throw together the observations gene- 

 rally collected upon the habits of those two important animals 

 for the Arctic navigator, the reindeer and musk-ox. The 

 facts are spread over a great amount of journalising, but the writer, 

 anxious to place on record the new information gleaned, has here 

 given it, premising that he is no naturalist, and that he alone is 

 responsible for the non migration theory, having been nearly 

 excommunicated as a heretic in 1851, for first giving utterance to 

 it at Griffith's Island. Now that the triistwoithy records of the 

 voyages of Captains M'Clui-e, Austin, Kellet, Penny, and Kane, 

 have put us in possession of many facts connected with the move- 

 ments of the oceanic ice up to a very late period in the year, in 

 different parts of the arctic archipelago, we are able to see that 

 the statement of an autumnal migration of the herbivorous animals, 

 to the Continent of America, for the purpose of avoiding the 

 rigours of an arctic winter, is no longer tenable. 



The great winter drift, in 18i9 and 1850, of Sir James Ross 

 and Commander De Haven from Barrow's Strait and the top of 

 Wellington Channel, proved that the ice around those lands was 

 in motion long after winter had set in, and that at the season of 

 utter darkness, those wild seas were churning and rolling on in 

 their mysterious course to south hititudes. We have seen s'nce 

 then, that the ice beset the " Investigator" in Prince of Wales 



