THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 218.— February, 1895. 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE MUSK-OX IN GREENLAND. 

 By Colonel H. W. Feilden, C.M.Z.S. 



The writer of the article on the Musk-ox in the volumes of 

 the ' Badminton Library,'* devoted to " Big Game Shooting," 

 remarks : — " The present range of the Musk-ox is limited to the 

 North American continent and the outlying islands in the Arctic 

 Ocean ; it is perhaps best denned as lying to the north and east 

 of a line drawn from the mouth of the Mackenzie River to Fort 

 Churchill on Hudson Bay. Latitude 60° is generally accepted as 

 its southern boundary, whilst the Musk-ox seems capable of 

 existing very far north, as some are recorded to have been killed 

 on Grinnell Land, latitude 82° 27', within a mile of the winter 

 quarters of H.M.S. 'Alert' in July, 1876, but I can find no record 

 of any having been seen in Greenland." 



Mr. Warburton Pike, the writer of the above citation, is a 

 hardy sportsman and intrepid traveller, and in his book on the 

 'Barren Ground of Northern Canada'! gives most interesting 

 information in regard to the habits of the Musk-ox, and its chase 

 and capture by the Indians and half-breeds of Canada. In that 

 debatable portion of the Hudson Bay Territory beyond the Great 

 Slave Lake, which marks the limits of the hunting excursions of 

 the Indians and the southern range of the Eskimo of the Arctic 

 coast-line, the Musk-ox seems to be abundant, and Mr. Warburton 



* 'Badminton Library: Big Game Shooting,' vol. i. (1894), pp.428 — 435. 

 f ' Barren Ground of Northern Canada.' London, 1892. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XIX. FEB. 1895. E 



