THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
The Musk Oxen belong to a sub -family, namely Ovibos , which is 
related to the takins (Budorcas), the bisons and the sheep. As a matter of fact, 
however, Ovibos has no very near relatives, and, since palaeontology does 
not help us, the genus must be regarded as an isolated one with some 
affinity to the sheep. The height of the male at the shoulder is a little over 
four feet. The whole of the thick-set body and head is covered with a dense 
pelage of long and coarse brown hair, being somewhat curly and matted 
about the shoulders; the forehead has a distinct tuft and there is long 
hair on the fringe of the chin, throat and chest. On the muzzle, lower parts 
of the limbs and a strip between the horns, the hair is shorter and finer. 
There is also a soft woolly under -fur. Between the horns, on the muzzle and 
below the knees and hocks, the colour is buff or yellowish white. 
The horns of the male are expanded, and flattened at the base, and 
separated, like those of the white -tailed gnu, by a narrow strip of skin. 
The curvature is at first outwards, then downwards and slightly backwards, 
and finally upwards and slightly forwards. In colour they are yellowish 
brown, becoming darker towards the tips. The horns of the male are usually 
from 23 to 24 inches long. The longest head recorded by Rowland Ward is 
33 inches, with a basal expansion of 12| inches. 
The horns of the female are similar to those of the male, but less 
expanded at the base, shorter and thinner; they seldom measure more 
than 18 or 19 inches. 
In 1908 I examined, in Winnipeg, six unusually fine musk ox heads, 
killed in the previous winter to the east of the mouth of the Mackenzie. 
Amongst them was a remarkable specimen, probably one of the two 
largest in the world. It measured 31 inches along the outer curve and 
was 14 inches across the palm. I had it photographed and here present 
its portrait. 
Formerly the musk ox existed in Central Europe, and its remains have 
been found in the Pleistocene gravels of England, and in several parts of 
Germany, in association with the bones of the reindeer, the mammoth and 
the woolly rhinoceros. In North-Eastern Asia, where two skulls were dis- 
covered by the Russian naturalist, Pallas, on the banks of the Obi and in the 
Siberian tundra, it may have existed until a later date, as these were found 
in superficial deposits. 
At the present day the musk ox has a very wide distribution along the 
shores of Baffin’s Land, East Greenland, North Greenland, Grinnell Land, 
and Arctic America east of the Mackenzie River. Within the memory of 
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