MUSK-OXEN IN ENGLAND 289 
river-valleys, such as those of the Thames and Severn, as 
well as in the brick-earths of Kent. It is also probable 
that they occur in the “ forest-bed” of the Norfolk coast, 
which somewhat antedates the great glaciation of Britain. 
This being so, it is evident that the musk-ox was a 
living British animal within the period during which our 
islands have been inhabited by man, for in many of the 
deposits in which its remains occur flint implements and 
other evidences of human presence are likewise found. 
Probably, indeed, the early human inhabitants of Britain 
not infrequently made a meal of musk-ox beef; but the 
disappearance of the animal from the British fauna may 
apparently be attributed rather to a change in climatic 
conditions than to pursuit by man. 
From that long-distant day when the last indigenous 
British musk-ox departed this life no living representative 
of the species appears to have been brought to our islands 
till the autumn of 1899, when a couple of young bulls were 
added to the collection of the Duke of Bedford at Woburn 
Abbey. These were captured in August in Clavering Island, 
situated off the coast of East Greenland, opposite Kénig 
Wilhelm Land, about latitude 74° 5’ N. When they arrived 
they were about the size of a rather large sheep, but by 
March of the following year the solitary survivor had 
increased considerably in size, although the horns were then 
only just visible above the long hairs of the sides of the 
forehead. 
Probably most of my readers are more or less familiar 
with the general appearance of the adult musk-ox; but 
those who are not would do well to turn to its portrait 
as shown opposite next page, or, still better, to pay a 
visit to the British Museum at South Kensington, where 
both the mounted skin and the skeleton are exhibited. The 
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