﻿FIELD AND FOREST. 1 53 



with a slight azure tinge. The flesh of lean animals is strongly fla- 

 vored with musk, while that of the bulls is so excessively impregnated 

 with the odor, as to preclude the possibility of its being taken into 

 the stomach except upon the direst necessity. M. Drage affirms the 

 heart to be most impregated ; while other writers, as positively assert 

 the kidney to be the organ. I am inclined to believe that both are 

 wrong. The musky odor is undoubtedly associated with the sexual 

 fuction, for the organ of the male is lubricated with a gummy sub- 

 stance which preserves the musky odor indefinitely. In the British Mu- 

 seum is a specimen of the generative apparatus of the male ovibos, 

 which retains the odor to a marked degree, although received by that 

 institution upward of a century since. 



The skin of -this strange animal, when properly dressed, is said to 

 make excellent leather which when worn as an article of clothing ef- 

 fectually protects the wearer from the severest cold. Another reason 

 of its being much sought after by the Indians is, the fact, that it does 

 not become stiff, neither does it shrink upon drying after being wetted. 

 From the horns, spoons are manufactured by the Esquimaux. If the 

 under wool could be obtained in sufficient quantity it would be exceed- 

 ingly valuable in the arts ; but the rigor of an Arctic climate precludes 

 such a possibility except some nearer and more urgent demand arise 

 than at present exists. 



Unless the Smithsonian Institute has received a skeleton within a 

 few years, there is none in the United States excepting that presented 

 by Dr. Elisha Kent Kane to the Academy of Natural Sciences at 

 Philadelphia. 



G. A. Stockwell. 



At the Annual Meeting of The American Microscopical Society of 

 the City of New York, held Tuesday Evening, January 9th, 1877, the 

 following officers were elected for the ensuing year : 



■President John B. Rich, M. D., 1 West 38th Street; Vice Pres-t, 

 Win. H. Atkinson, M. D., 41 East 9th Street; Secretary, O. G. Ma- 

 son, Bellevue Hospital; Treasurer, T. d'Oremieulx, 7 Winthrop Place; 

 Curator, John Frey, Bellevue Hospital. President, Vice President, 

 and Treasurer were re-elected. 



O. G. Mason, Sec'y. 



