MUSK-OX. 
43 
came the pair of specimens presented by Mr. St. G. Littledale^ and 
to the forest of Bialowicza in Lithuania, where it is protected by 
the Emperor of Russia, the donor of the fine Bull exhibited sepa- 
rately. The American Bison, erroneously called Buffalo {B. ameri- 
canus), which, except where protected, is now practically extinct, 
but which used to wander in innumerable herds over the prairies 
of North America, forming the chief means of subsistence to tribes 
of Indians, equally doomed to speedy extinction. Finally, the MTld 
Ox of Central Asia, the Yak {Bos grunniens) , partly reclaimed and 
domesticated in Tibet and Mongolia. 
The Musk-Ox [Ovibos moschatus) is represented by a remark- 
ably fine series in Cases 57-60, for which we are indebted to the 
various British Arctic Expeditions. It is covered all over with very 
Fig. 16. 
The Musk-Ox. (Discovery Bay ; Voyage of H.M.S. ‘ Alert.’) 
long hair, often nearly two feet in length, and with a thick woolly 
under-fur. It inhabits the Polar regions of the Western Hemi- 
sphere, between the 60th and 83rd parallels of latitude, and is 
found in herds of from 10 to 30. It is surprising that so large an 
animal should be able to subsist during the long Arctic winter on 
the scanty vegetation of those regions. When fat its flesh is 
well -flavoured, but lean animals smell strongly of musk. Notwith- 
standing the shortness of its legs, the Musk-Ox runs fast, and 
