18 HOOFED ANIMALS 
to the body is a woolly coat of very fine, soft, light-brown 
hair, very clean, and so dense that neither cold nor moisture 
can penetrate it. Thisisfor warmth. The longer and coarser 
hair that grows through it is the storm-coat, to shed rain and 
snow. Our first Musk-Ox began to shed its woolly under- 
coat on April 10. On April 26 it was loose all over the body, 
and beginning to hang in rags; therefore, for both the com- 
fort and the appearance of the animal, we threw her upon 
the ground, held her securely, and combed it all out. It was 
very fine, curly, free from oil, and the entire mass weighed 
six pounds. 
Although known for more than a century, the Musk-Ox 
is one of the last of the large land mammals of the world to 
come into captivity for public exhibition, and it was not until 
1900 that its soft anatomy was studied for the first time. 
Anatomically, this animal presents a few sheep-like fea- 
tures. By some writers their importance has been so much 
exaggerated that the name “‘Musk-Sheep” has been proposed 
as a substitute for Musk-Ox. But the sheep-like characters 
are insignificant in comparison with those that are clearly 
ox-like.1 
Two species have been described. That of the Barren 
Grounds of the mainland of North America has long been 
known as Ovibos moschatus. In 1901 the animal of Green- 
land and northern Grinnell Land was described as Ovibos 
wardi, the White-Fronted Musk-Ox, because of a band of 
gray or dirty-white hair, extending across the top of its head. 
1See E. Lonnberg, on “The Anatomy of the Musk-Ox,” in the Proceedings 
of the Zoological Society of London, 1900. 
