CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MUSK OX 
“Tn it,” says Hornaday again, ‘one sees an oblong mass of very long 
and wavy brown hair, four and a half feet high by six and a half feet long, 
supported on very short and postlike legs, that are half hidden by the 
sweeping pelage of the body. The three-inch tail is so very small and short 
it is quite invisible. There is a blunt and hairy muzzle, round and shin- 
ing eyes, but the ears are almost invisible. The whole top of the head is 
covered by a pair of horns enormously flattened at the base, and meeting 
each other in the center-line of the body. From the meeting point they 
sweep downward over the edge of the cranium, close to the cheeks, but 
finally recurve upward before coming to a point, like the waxed mustache 
of a boulevardier.... The outer hair is a foot or more in length, and often 
touches the snow when the animal walks.” 
The name is due to a musky odor, useful in enabling the animals to find 
one another and keep together during the winter darkness and storms of 
their terrible home, which is perceptible to human nostrils at a considerable 
distance, but does not taint the flesh if a carcass is quickly and properly 
disemboweled; and the meat is excellent. 
Musk oxen go about in bands feeding upon anything vegeta- 
ble they can find. How they get enough in winter is a mys- 
tery. They probably paw down through the snow; and 
‘Schwatka concluded they used their horns as snow-shovels, 
as the reindeer do. Their one natural enemy is wolves, and 
against these they have learned that their only safety is in stand- 
ing firmly in a bunch with the young in the center, and the 
rams forming a fighting front all around. The same tactics 
are used when the Eskimo and their wolfish dogs attack a herd. 
Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka witnessed such an assault, 
and speaks of the musk oxen as presenting a most formidable 
appearance, with their rumps firmly wedged together, a com- 
plete circle of swaying horns presented to the front, with great 
bloodshot eyeballs glaring like red-hot shot amidst the escap- 
ing steam from their panting nostrils, and pawing and plunging 
at the circle of furious dogs that encompassed them. This 
habit of quickly coming to bay makes it easier for men to get 
near them; and the natives often stab them to death with spear 
or knife. The conditions seem much harder on the Barren 
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