A Famous Musk-Ox Head. 
The National Collection of Heads and Horns, 
it the Zoological Park, has just received a no- 
able and valuable musk-ox head as a gift from 
vVarburton Pike, of Victoria, British Columbia. 
\11 readers of arctic travels, and all hunters of 
iig game know Mr. Pike as thp author of that 
inest of all works on northern Canada, entitled 
The Barren Grounds of Northern Canada,” 
tublished by the Macmillan Company in 1892. 
\mong books of its kind, it is a classic. It de- 
cribes Mr. Pike’s daring and even terrible trip 
n midwinter into the country of the musk-ox 
ind barren ground caribou, from which he 
irought out the first detailed and authentic in¬ 
formation ever given to the world regarding the 
>arren-ground musk-ox on its native heath, 
iis book was the motif of all subsequent hunting 
expeditions into that desolate, and in winter ter- 
ible, country. 
Mr. Pike is a resident of Victoria, British 
Columbia, and owns a gold mine in the Dease 
^ake region. A year ago he passed through New 
York, and was made much of by the big-game 
hunters of New York, at the Boone and Crockett 
Club, and in the Zoological Park. From the first 
he has been keenly interested in the movement 
for a National Collection of Heads and Horns. 
The musk-ox head recently received from Mr. 
Pike is the largest and finest trophy of his fa¬ 
mous expedition. It appears in Mr. Rowland 
Ward’s “Records of Big Game,” well up near 
the top of the list of “record” heads of musk-ox. 
Its measurements are as follows: 
Length of horn on outside curve.26% inches 
Distance between tips of horns. 27 
Width of horn at base.11 
The hair under the chin, about .12 
The head was mounted by John Fannin, late 
curator of the Provincial Museum at Victoria, 
and is in a fine state of preservation. Its colors 
are apparently as fresh as when, in a tempera¬ 
ture of 50 degrees below zero, in a howling gale 
of snow, the owner was shot, decapitated, and 
devoured—all save this head—by five desperate 
men and a dozen hungry sled-dogs. 
Yellowstone Park Notes. 
Gardiner, Montana, March 9 . —Editor For¬ 
est and Stream: Yesterday the elk broke 
down the fence about the alfalfa stacks. These 
stacks are a little over a quarter of a mile from 
Gardiner, across the ditch. The scouts came 
down to-day and rolled up the wire fence, and 
to-morrow are going to put it up again. 
This winter there appear to be only half as 
many antelope here as there were last. I do not 
know whether they are away in the hills, or 
down the Yellowstone River, or are lost in the 
park. Everyone about here has noticed their 
absence. 
Yesterday evening about 5 o’clock I heard a 
wolf howl. It is the first one I ever heard in 
the park. A number of other people heard it, 
and it was unmistakably a wolf. I did not see it. 
Yesterday while driving up to the Springs, I 
saw a band of mountain sheep at the feeding 
corral on the Gardiner River and several others 
along the sides of the canon. Scattered all along 
the road from Gardiner to Fort Yellowstone 
were mule deer, and there were a few hundred 
in and about the post. Large bands of elk are 
to be seen every evening. Along the Gardiner 
River where the willows grow we saw a dozen 
white-tail deer. I hear that the buffalo are 
doing well out East Fork way. 
There is quite a heavy fall of snow all through 
the park. We even had a foot in Gardiner. The 
alfalfa flat is covered from six inches to one foot 
deep, and as you go on up toward the Mammoth 
Hot Springs it grows deeper. There it is over 
two feet deep, or, say a foot and a half of set¬ 
tled snow. To-day is clear and warm, and the 
water is running in the roads. The usual num¬ 
ber of ducks and other birds 'are living along the 
river. 
Yesterday I drove near several bands of ante¬ 
lope, some of which were lying down. Most of 
them would get up as we approached, but one 
lay there chewing its cud while we drove by. 
There have been over a hundred people who 
came to the park to see the animals this winter. 
One party of Northern Pacific Railway officials 
got a team and drove up the Gardiner River, 
where they saw game all along the road. 
T. E. H. 
RECORD HEAD OF BARREN GROUND MUSK-OX. 
Shot by Warburton Pike, Esq., and presented to the National Collection of Heads and Horns, New York. 
A Squirrel’s Antics. 
In Central Park one day a fat gray squirrel 
was observed among the shrubbery, struggling 
with a large piece of manilla paper the wind had 
blown there. It succeeded in dragging the stiff 
paper into the open, but could not hold it high 
enough above the ground to avoid treading on it. 
and its antics attracted the attention of passers 
by. The squirrel would grasp the paper in its 
mouth, then try to root the mass into more com¬ 
pact form, just as a terrier would do in attempt¬ 
ing to pick up a large piece of board ; but the 
paper was troublesome and the gusty wind hind¬ 
ered. What happened when the home tree was 
gained is not known, but when last seen bushy- 
tail was still tugging and wrestling with his find. 
