302 UNGULATA. 



although at certain seasons it is said to have a musk- 

 like flavour. 



In Grinnell Land, 100 animals were killed by the 

 Greely Expedition, whilst as many as 200 were seen ; 

 this would therefore seem a favoured locality. The 

 dwarf willow grows here one inch high, and dense 

 masses of saxifrage, and the Musk-Ox thrives on both 

 of these. Many Musk-Ox were also met with in the 

 Nares Expedition, and they were sometimes found in 

 herds of nine animals. 1,358 skins were sold by the 

 Hudson's Bay Company in 1891, fetching 6s. to 120s. 

 The skin of this animal is much appreciated, and 

 deservedly so, by the Canadians for the manufacture of 

 fine sleigh-robes. The hair was once made into excel- 

 lent gloves, but is now too expensive to be of any 

 practical use. • In the Barren Lands, the Musk-Ox is 

 said to be hunted by the Esquimaux with dogs, who 

 collect them into a herd. 



H. W. Fielden, ih his " Voyage -to the Polar Sea," 

 vol. ii. p. 200, says : — " In the month of August, 1875, we 

 met with abundant traces of the Musk-Ox in the valley 

 of the Twin Glacier, leading inland from the shore of 

 Buchanan Strait. I noticed where these animals had 

 been sheltering themselves under the lee of big boulders, 

 as sheep do on bleak hill-sides, and that the same spots 

 were frequently occupied was shown by the holes 

 tramped out by the animals, and the large quantities of 

 their long soft wool which was scattered around. 



" It is an animal by no means fitted to travel through 

 the deep snow which blocks up the heads of all thes^ 

 valleys. On one occasion, in Westward Ho ! Valley, in 

 the month of May, Lieutenant Egerton and I came 

 across fresh tracks of this animal in soft snow, through 

 which it had sunk belly-deep, ploughing out a path and 



