﻿xl INTRODUCTION. 



appear to be only varieties of C. tarandus, analogous to those now found in the high 

 latitudes of Europe, Asia, and America. Previously 1 to the year 1671 it had disappeared 

 from the south side of the Baltic, and now is rapidly retreating northwards along with the 

 Fins at the approach of civilised man. In Asia, in Pennant's time (1780), on the 

 authority of Dr. Pallas, it extended along the Urals to the foot of the Caucasus. In 

 America its southern limit is the parallel of Quebec. 



The musk-sheep, Ovibos mosc/iatus, De Blainv., associated with the mammoth, tichorhine 

 rhinoceros, horse and deer, in the gravels of the Avon, is now confined to the high 

 northern latitudes of the American continent, where it ranges over the treeless barren 

 grounds from the River Mackenzie, through 105 degrees of longitude, along with 

 Esquimaux, reindeer, wolverines, bears, and various species of lemming, and spermo- 

 philus, and hare. Sir John Richardson places the Mackenzie River as its probable 

 western limit, but Captain Beechey 2 found that the Esquimaux near Eschscholtz Bay 

 knew the animal, so that in all probability it ranges through the district to the west of 

 this. Its southern limit extends from the edge of the woods up to the highest northern 

 latitudes, yet reached by our explorers, " from the entrance of the Welcome into Hudson's 

 Bay, about the 60th parallel of latitude, in a westward and northward direction to the 

 66th parallel, at the north-east corner of Great Bear Lake, and from thence nearly in the 

 same direction to Cape Bathurst in the 71st parallel." 3 Within the last century it had a 

 further range to the south to latitude 59, the enterprising traveller Hearne having seen 

 its tracks in the neighbourhood of Fort Churchill in the year 1770. As an associate of 

 the mammoth it ranged over the " tundras " or treeless " barren grounds " of Asia, on the 

 borders of the great Polar Sea. In tracing its remains from the locality in which it still 

 lives, southwards and westwards, we find them in the frozen gravels and brick-earths of 

 Eschscholtz Bay, along with mammoth, elk, reindeer, horse, and bison. 4 On crossing 

 Behring's Straits into Asiatic Russia they are described by Ozeretzkousky as occurring 

 at the mouth of the river Jana, between the rivers Lena and Indigirka, in longitude 

 135°, and latitude 65°; and by Pallas, as occurring still further to the west, in the 

 great " tundra " or moss steppe between the Obi and the Lena. The discovery of the 

 skull of Ovibos moschatus at the mouth of the river Obi, in longitude 70°, and within the 

 Polar circle, brings the animal almost to the borders of Europe. 5 Then passing over the 

 vast areas of Russia in Europe, and Germany, where there are no authentic accounts of 



1 Zimmerman, 'Specimen Zoologiae Geographise' (4to, Lugduni Batavorum, 1778, p. 285): — 

 " Bartholino teste ('Acta Hasnens.,' 1671), Daniam rangiferi plene deseruerunt nee amplius ibidem ut 

 olim proveniunt. Et Pontoppidanus ('Norweg.,' t. xi, p. 21), Reynardus que ( c (Euvres de Reynard,' 

 Paris, 1750, t. i), tentatas eorum educationes propagationesque secus ibi cecidisse omnesque periisse con- 

 nrmant." 



2 'Voyage to the Pacific' (4to, London, 1831), p. 324. 



3 'Zool. of H.M S. Herald,' 4to, 1854, p. 23. 



4 See 'Zool. H.M.S. Herald,' and Appendix, by Dr. Buckland, in ' Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific' 



5 See Cuvier's ' Oss. Foss.,' vol. iv, p. 155, 1825. 



