A MUSK-OX HUNT. 
‘if it is cold weather; and this rule may be 
said to be more or less general with all ani- 
mals and birds having disagreeable odors pe- 
culiar to their kind. 
I haye said the robes are almost worthless 
to the natives except for purposes of traffic. 
They aré.sometimes used ‘to spread on the 
snow-bed, as the first layer of skins, in order 
to protect thé.snow from the heat of the body; 
but even here they are not nearly so serviceable 
as the robe ofthe reindeer, owing to the 
facility with which the snow can be removed 
from the latter by‘a few strokes of a stick. 
The Ookjoolik or Ooqueesik-Salik Eskimos, 
of Hayes River, who\\are not armed, and 
consequently can procure but few reindeer 
(whose hide is the universal arctic clothing), 
often make long boot-leggings and gloves of 
musk-ox fur; and this gives them a peculiarly 
wild and savage appearance ‘that contrasts 
strangely with other natives. “The almost 
total absence of wood in their country —the 
little they get being obtained by barter 
with distant and more fortunate tribes— 
forces them to use the skin of the ‘musk- 
ox for sledging. The ears and fore-legs of 
the skin being lashed almost together, a 
sledge-like front is obtained, and the articles 
to be transported are loaded on the trailing» 
body behind. Over lakes, rivers, and flat 
plains it is equal to wood, but in very uneyen 
ground its pliability is dangerous to fragile 
loads. 
When closely pressed, the musk-oxen do not 
hesitate to throw themselves from the steepest 
_and deepest precipices ; and the natives speak 
of occasions where they have secured them in 
this manner without wasting powder or lead, 
finding them dead at the foot of the descent. 
Sir James Clarke Ross had apersonal observa- 
tion of this kind in one of his arctic expeditions. 
McClintock once saw a cow on Melville 
Island, in the Parry archipelago, which was of 
a pure white color, an albino sort of deviation 
that is known to occur among the buffalo of 
_ the plains at rare intervals. She was, however, 
accompanied by a black calf. This Melville 
Island is abundantly peopled with these oxen, 
not less than one hundred and fourteen being 
shot with a year by the crews of two ships 
wintering there. When inhabiting islands, they 
_ do not seem to cross from one to another, as 
the reindeer constantly do when the chan- 
nel is frozen over, and even confine their an- 
- nual migrations to very limited areas. Different 
writers disagree as to whether they can be 
) 1990 
679 
called migratory in the strict sense of the 
word. If white men are hunting them without 
dogs, they may station themselves about a 
herd, close in to seventy or eighty yards, and 
then, by picking off the restless ones first, 
so bewilder the remainder that, withfair luck, 
they may secure them all. There Are several 
instances of such methods being tolerably 
successful. When the temperature reaches the 
extremes of the bitter winter weather, as from 
—6o0° to —7o° Fahrenheit, the musk-oxen 
and reindeer herds can be located, at from six to 
seven miles distance, by the cloud of moisture 
which hangs over them, formed by their con- 
densing breath, and from favorable heights at 
even fifteen to twenty miles. Even at these 
extreme distances; the native hunters claim 
that they can discern the difference between 
musk-oxen and reindeer by some varying 
peculiarities of their vapors. 
I remember being one of a party of six— 
five Innuits besides myself—that chased on 
the fresh trail of a small herd of musk-oxen from 
about nine o’clock in the morning until night- 
fall, which was four in the afternoon. We went 
at a gait which would be called a good round 
“‘dog-trot” for the whole time, except one 
small rest of five minutes. This is much easier 
than one would imagine, with a couple of dogs 
harnessed to you to tow you along; yet I 
confess I wasecompletely fagged out after 
this\ little run of not less than forty or fifty 
miles; and in a fine condition to believe many 
stories.of endurance while on hunting chases 
that I had heard them tell. The thermometer 
at camp registered 65° below zero, yet there 
was no suffermg from the still cold during 
such exercisé, and in fact, at times, I felt 
uncomfortably warm. 
One of their\peculiarities which I have 
noticed is that when slightly wounded, if they 
have been knocked over upon their sides, 
they seem perfectly powerless to rise, either 
from fear or the peculiar formation of their 
legs. ‘Two of the animals we shot on the 
zgth of April received each.a broken shoulder 
and were knocked on their sides. The native 
men, women, and boys sat upon their heaving 
sides, evidently enjoying the cruel sport ; and 
all the white men participated\for a mere 
second, rather to please their savage allies, 
until I requested them to dispatch the brutes, 
which they did by a well-directed heatt thrust 
with a snow-knife. My natives spoke Of this 
occurrence as a rather common incident of the 
musk-ox battle-field. 
Frederick Schwatka. 
