Chapter II: Part 2

I think the most trying hour of the twenty-four in the Barren Grounds day was at the camping time in the afternoon. Beniah invariably chose the highest and most exposed position to be found, that our tepee might be the more visible to the scouts, kept out all day on either side looking for caribou, or musk-oxen; and there was always the delaying discussion of the Indians amongst themselves, while I, chilled to the bone by the inaction, stood around awaiting the close of the argument before it was possible to get to the business of camp-making. Because the snow was packed so hard as to be impossible to shovel away with the snow-shoe, a rocky site was always sought, where we fitted our bodies to the uneven ground as best we could. With the camp site definitely chosen, a circle was made of the sledges, touching head and tail; then three lodge poles, tied together at the top, were set up in the form of a triangle, with the ends stuck into the sledges to give them firm footing, and the four remaining poles placed so as to make a cone of the triangle. Over and around this was stretched the caribou-skin tepee, with the bottom edge drawn down and outside the sledges. Blocks of snow were then cut and banked up around the outside of the tepee and against the sledges; all this by way of firmly anchoring the tepee, which set so low that one’s head and shoulders would be in the open when standing upright in the centre; but that was of no consequence, the lodge being set up merely as a protection to the fire. A short pole, also carried along from the last wood, was lashed from side to side of the tepee, on to the lodge poles proper, and from this, attached by a piece of babiche and a forked stick, hung the kettle. Then, all being ready, four or five sticks were taken from the sledges equally, and split into kindling wood with the heavy knife one needs to carry in musk-ox hunting. Of course the fire furnished no warmth; it was not built for that purpose; it was simply to boil the tea, and perhaps I can best give an idea of its size in saying that by the time the snow in the kettle had been melted to water and the water begun to boil,--the fire was exhausted. While it blazed and the tea was making, always the close circle of seven hungry men, shoulder to shoulder, squatted around the light in the fancy that some heat must come from that little jumping flame. Outside that other circle of sledges, the dogs snuffed and sniffed and howled. Once I took off my gloves, with the thought of warming my fingers. I made no second experiment of the kind.

Having drunk the tea, we rolled up in our fur robes, lying side by side around the tepee, with feet toward the fire and head against the sledge, knees into the back of the man next you, and snow-shoes under your head, away from the dogs that would eat the lacing. This was only preparation for sleep; actual sleep, even to men as tired as we were, never came until the dogs had finished fighting over us; for so soon as we were rolled in our robes the dogs invariably poured into the tepee. As there were twenty-eight dogs, and the lodge about seven feet in diameter at its base, I need not further describe the situation. Truth is, that no hour in the day or night was more miserable than this, when these half-starved brutes fought over and on top of us before they finally settled down upon us. In extreme cold weather a dog curled up at your feet or at your back is not unpleasant; but to have one lying on your head, another on your shoulders or hips, or perhaps a third on your feet, and you lying on your side on rocky, uneven ground--take my word for it, the experience is not happy. Of course you are entirely wrapped up, head and arms as well, in your sleeping robe; if you rise up to knock the dogs off, you open your robe to the cold: and the dogs would be back on top of you again just as soon as you had lain down.

It is all in the Musk-ox game; and so you endure.

V

THE MUSK-OX

A full-grown bull. (From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)]

Although there is nothing in the appearance or in the life of the musk-ox to suggest romance, yet the Indians and the Eskimo surround it with much mystery. They say it is not like other animals, that it is cunning and plays tricks on them, that it is not safe to approach, that it understands what is said. The Indians among whom I travelled have a tradition that long years ago a woman wandered into the Barren Grounds, was lost, and finally turned into a musk-ox by the “enemy.” Perhaps this accounts for the occasional habit these Indians have when pursuing musk-oxen of talking to them, instructing them as to the direction of their flight, etc. Several authors maintain that these Indians, when hunting, do not talk to other animals; but I have heard them jabbering while hunting caribou after the same manner they do when running after musk-oxen. Why the Indians should consider the musk-ox tricky or ferocious, appears to me to be the only mysterious element in the discussion; a less ferocious looking animal for its size would, it seems to me, be impossible to find. Several Arctic explorers who have written on the musk-ox also refer to it as “formidable” appearing and “ferocious,” but those are the last adjectives that I should apply to the creature. The Indians and some of the Arctic authors also say that it is dangerous to approach, especially when wounded. My experience does not indorse that statement. We encountered about one hundred and twenty-five musk-oxen, killing forty-seven, and I did not see one that even suggested the charging proclivities for which it is given credit. They stand with lowered heads, making a hook at the dogs that are nearest, and on occasion making a movement forward, practically a bluff at charging, but I never saw one really charge a dog, much less a man. I do not believe they can be induced to break the circle they invariably form, as they would, of course, do in charging. On one occasion I wounded a musk-ox badly enough to enable me to run him over and around a series of short ridges finally to a standstill. He was entirely alone, and I was without a dog, and when I had got to within seventy-five feet of him he suddenly stopped running and faced me, setting his stern against a rock--or, rather, over it, for it was quite a small rock. I walked up to within about thirty or forty feet of him, and took a head shot. I thought to see if I could reach his brain, but the boss of his great frontal horn protects it, except for the small opening of an inch where the horns are divided. Then with an idea of putting a ball back of his shoulder or back of his ear, I tried to get on his side, but as I moved, he moved, always keeping his head straight at me, and we made several complete circles; yet, in that time,--I suppose ten or fifteen minutes--he never offered to charge. If a straggling dog had not come my way and attracted the bull’s attention, I probably never would have got the chance of a shoulder shot. Mr. Pike, whom, of living men, I consider to have made the most extended study of the musk-ox, agrees entirely with my view of the animal so far as its charging is concerned. Perhaps the musk-ox might charge if you walked up and pulled his ear, but I doubt if he would under less provocation, and really, I do not feel so certain that he would even then. He seems a stupid, mild creature,--anything but “ferocious.” In one little band of eight which we had separated from the main herd and killed, a yearling calf ran against my legs, seemingly seeking protection from the dogs precisely as a young sheep would.

The musk-ox appears, in fact, to be a veritable link between the ox and the sheep. It has the rudimentary tail, the molar teeth structure, the hairy muzzle, and the intestines of the sheep; while its short and wide canon-bones are like those of the ox, and differ widely from either sheep or goat. The hoofs are large, with curved toes and somewhat concave underneath, like the caribou hoof, which facilitates climbing rocky ridges and scraping away the snow from their only food, the lichen and the moss, for which purpose their horns are also admirably adapted. Mr. Rhodes has advanced the theory of the existence of a transition between the musk-ox and the bison, but the structure of the molar teeth and the rudimentary tail convince Professor R. Lydekker, perhaps the foremost scientific authority, of the impossibility of there being any manner of relationship between the two groups. Scientifically, the musk-ox is of the genus OVIBUS, divided into _O. moschatus_, the Barren Grounds and Greenland type, the _O. wardi_ (Lydekker), and _O. bombifrons_, otherwise known as the Harlan’s musk-ox, an extinct type that, in a word, differed from the present living type largely in shape of the horns, which did not have the downward curve of those in existence, nor did the curve of the horns come closely to the head as they do now.

Adult male. (From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)]

Until 1898 _O. moschatus_ was the only existing type known to either hunters or scientists. In that year, however, Lieutenant Peary, the Arctic explorer, killed in Bache Peninsula, Greenland, a series of specimens which, on being sent to the Museum of Natural History of New York, were decided by Professor J. A. Allen as having sufficient distinction to warrant classification. Meantime Rowland Ward, the London taxidermist, had secured, by purchase, a couple of similar specimens from East Greenland which Professor Lydekker recognized as a new variety, and in honor of Mr. Ward named _O. moschatus wardi_. Mr. Ward’s specimens were secured from whalers who, in turn, got them from trading with natives in East Greenland. Lieutenant Peary’s specimens, however, were collected on the ground by himself, and he is certainly entitled to the honor of the new variety bearing his name. So Professor Allen rightly thinks, and though he has adopted Professor Lydekker’s name, he reserves _O. pearyi_ (Allen) as a provisionary one which may be accepted for the Grinnell Land animal in case it should prove to be separable. This, however, does not appear likely. The most distinguishing difference between the _O. wardi_, as called, or _O. pearyi_, as it should be known, and the _O. moschatus_, is in the head. The entire front of the new variety head is more or less gray instead of wholly brown, as is the _O. moschatus_; while the horn base of the new variety is much narrower and slightly different in shape from those of the old variety. The skulls of the two varieties are practically alike; at least there is very slight difference. The general color of the fur of the new variety is a little lighter, and the animal itself is not so large or heavily built.

How either variety of musk-ox ever got to Greenland has been a subject of much discussion among scientists who seem now, however, to have finally decided that they reached the island from the west by crossing Smith Sound from Ellesmere Land, and by crossing Robeson’s Channel from Grinnell Land, thence along the low Greenland Coast to East Greenland. Outside of the Arctic islands and of Arctic America so far south as the 62d parallel, the musk-ox is unknown. There was a time, however, when its range included all that part of the northern hemisphere between, roughly speaking, the Arctic Circle and the North Pole. It seems even possible that in the dim ages, the musk-ox had a wider and much more southern distribution, for the skull from which the extinct type _bombifrons_ was named, was found in Kentucky, another having been found also in Arkansas. Fossil remains of musk-oxen have been unearthed in Siberia, Alaska, Grinnell Land, and Northern Europe. There is no authentic data of their having been found in Alaska within the memory of present living man, and they do not range within two hundred miles of the Mackenzie River, which is laid down as their western limit. Much has been said of their being of recent existence in Alaska. I made careful search for authentic data concerning their western range, but secured no information at all trustworthy of even a tradition of them in Alaska; while nothing more certain than hearsay handed from father to son did I find as to their being seen near the Mackenzie River. From time to time statements find their way into print of a musk-ox found in Alaska. Such misleading information is based on the tales of traders who may perhaps have got a musk-ox skin at some Alaskan post. Mr. Andrew J. Stone, who has spent several years in the Far North collecting for the Museum of Natural History, and who knows Alaska and all that great stretch of country west of the Mackenzie River thoroughly, has covered this question in a statement published in an American Museum bulletin in 1901. It touches finally upon a question much agitated, and it seems to me sufficiently important to make permanent record here. Therefore I reproduce it.

(From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)]

AS TO THE WESTERN RANGE OF MUSK-OXEN.

Febr’y 28, 1901.

MY DEAR DR. ALLEN:--

In response to your inquiry in reference to the existence of
the musk-ox (_Ovibos moschatus_) west of the Mackenzie River,
or in Alaska, I will state there are none of these animals in
any part of Arctic America west of the Mackenzie. Previous to
my departure for the North in the spring of 1897, I had for
several years carefully searched for information upon this
subject, and from what I had gathered I had a faint hope of
finding some of these animals in the mountains west of the
Mackenzie, just south of the Arctic Coast. These mountains
are known, respectively, as the Richardson, Buckland, British,
Romanzof, and Franklin Mountains, but in reality they are the
western extension of the main Rocky Mountain range that bends
west from the Mackenzie along the Arctic Coast. On reaching
the neighborhood of these mountains, however, in the winter of
1898-99, all hope of finding living specimens of musk-ox in
them was destroyed.

The Romanzof Mountains, from which specimens of musk-ox are
reported to have recently been brought, by way of Camden Bay,
are about one hundred and seventy-five miles west of Herschel
Island. The Pacific Steam Whaling Company, with offices at No.
30 California Street, San Francisco, have maintained a whaling
station at Herschel Island for a number of years; there has
also been established there for a number of years a Church
of England Mission, under the direction of the Rev. I. O.
Stringer. I visited Herschel Island in November and December,
1898, for the purpose of collecting all possible information
relative to the animal life of those regions. On my way to
and from Herschel Island I sledded the very base of the Davis
Gilbert, Richardson, and Buckland Mountains. I stopped over
night on both journeys with a lot of Eskimo, at that time
hunting the Davis Gilbert Mountains and living in what is known
as Oakpik (willow camp), in the extreme western part of the
Mackenzie delta, very near the foot of the mountains. Specimens
of _Ovis dalli_ (white sheep) and of caribou and fur-bearing
animals were plentiful in their camp, but there was no sign of
musk-ox.

At Shingle Point, on the Arctic Coast, near the Richardson
Mountains, I spent several days with a man who was trading with
the Eskimo who were hunting the Richardson Mountains. There
were several Eskimo in his camp at the time, and he had in his
possession skins of the white sheep, caribou, and a variety of
fur-bearing animals, but there was no sign of musk-ox, and
I learned on careful inquiry through my interpreter that the
natives seemed to know nothing of them, with the exception
of one young man who had been to the eastward on one of the
whaling ships. The Tooyogmioots, a tribe of Eskimo who once
lived along this coast and hunted these different mountains,
are now almost extinct. I found between the mouth of the
Mackenzie and Herschel Island a very few individuals living in
snow houses, but I did not find in or around their places of
residence any sign of musk-ox skins, bones, or heads.

I remained at Herschel Island from Nov. 24 to Dec. 14, visiting
the Rev. I. O. Stringer and Capt. Haggerty of the steam-whaler,
_Mary Dehume_. Both men were able to converse readily with
the Eskimo in the Eskimo tongue, and they gave me every
possible assistance in making my inquiries. This whole coast
far to the westward of Herschel Island is now occupied by the
Noonitagmiott tribe of Eskimo. There were a large number of
these people at the island, and among them were parties who
hunted all the mountains of the mainland mentioned, living in
the mountains a great part of the time. Many skins of caribou,
sheep, and fur-bearing animals were seen in the possession
of these people, but none of them possessed any part of the
musk-ox, and the only members of the tribe who knew anything
of the musk-ox were those who had been carried to the east by
whaling ships. The Rev. Mr. Stringer takes great interest in
the natural resources of the country and travels extensively
among these people, but he had no knowledge of the existence
of any musk-oxen west of the Mackenzie. Capt. Haggerty had
wintered along this coast for a number of years, trading
extensively with the natives, but he had never secured or heard
of a musk-ox skin west of the Mackenzie.

All the whaling ships, which have wintered here for years,
sometimes as many as fifteen at the same time, keep Eskimo
hunters in the field continually for the purpose of securing
fresh meat for the crews, sending white sailors in charge of
dog sleds to visit the Eskimo camps to bring in the meat. It
is not uncommon for these sleds to go one hundred and fifty
to two hundred miles for meat, and all the mountains to the
north and west of Herschel Island have been visited many times
by these hunters and sledding parties, without obtaining any
trace of musk-ox. Collinson, who wintered near Camden Bay in
1853-54, does not mention the musk-ox. The U. S. Government
Survey party, which wintered on the Porcupine several years ago
and visited Rampart House, a Hudson Bay trading post at the
Ramparts on the Porcupine River, and who went from there with
Mr. John Firth, the Hudson Bay Company’s trader, north through
these mountains to the Arctic Coast and returned, did not
find musk-ox. Several white men have travelled back and forth
through these mountains from Fort Yukon, on the Yukon River, to
Herschel Island, for the purpose of securing sled dogs of the
Eskimo on the Arctic Coast, to be used on the Yukon, without
securing or learning anything of the musk-ox. Mr. Hodgson and
Mr. Firth, both in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, have
been stationed at Fort Yukon at the mouth of the Porcupine,
at Rampart House on the Porcupine, and at Lapierres House on
Bell River, a tributary of the Porcupine, during a period
of over thirty years, trading with the Loucheaux Indians,
several tribes of which hunt north of these places into the
mountains mentioned, without ever obtaining any knowledge of
the existence of musk-ox; and the Hudson Bay Company have never
secured at any of these posts any skins of the musk-ox.

Previous to the advent of the whalers on this coast, the coast
Eskimo also traded at these Hudson Bay posts. The country
between the Porcupine River and the Arctic Coast, in which
district the mountains above mentioned are situated, is
entirely accessible from the north or south, and every part of
it has been hunted for years by the Eskimo and Indians. Barter
Island, near Camden Bay, has been the rendezvous of the north
coast Eskimo for years, where they meet every summer to barter
and trade with each other. At one of these midsummer festivals
there may be seen spotted reindeer skins from Siberia, walrus
ivory and walrus skins from Bering Sea, or the stone lamps from
the land of the Cogmoliks (the far-away people) of the East,
and it is not impossible, though hardly probable, that musk-ox
skins might be found there.

I also travelled through the country of the Kookpugmioots and
Abdugmioots of the Arctic Coast, east of the Mackenzie. The
first people encountered along the coast east of the Mackenzie
are the Kookpugmioots--they hunt the coast country as far east
as Liverpool Bay, but many of their best hunters never saw a
musk-ox. The Abdugmioots originally hunted the Anderson River
country, but now live around Liverpool Bay, and most of them
have hunted musk-ox. The Kogmoliks, who once lived around
Liverpool and Franklin Bays, but who are now practically merged
with the Kookpugmioots, along the shores of Allen Channel, have
been musk-ox killers.

A good many of the Port Clarence natives, living near Bering
Straits, have killed musk-oxen, but only around the head of
Franklin Bay and on Parry Peninsula, they having been taken
there by whalers. Nearly all the whaling ships pick up Port
Clarence natives, on their way north and east to the whaling
grounds, and keep them with them until their return, perhaps
thirty months later. Some of these vessels have wintered at
Cape Bathurst and in Langton Bay at the head of Franklin Bay.
Four of these vessels wintered in Langton Bay in 1897-98,
and during the winter their Eskimo and sailors killed about
eighty head of musk-oxen, most of which were taken on the Parry
Peninsula. When I was at Herschel Island, in the winter of
1898, I saw forty of these skins in one of the warehouses of
the Pacific Steam Whaling Company. They were the property of
Capt. H. H. Bodfish of the steam whaler _Beluga_.

The range of the musk-ox at the present time does not extend
westward to within three hundred miles of the Mackenzie delta.
Any information concerning the musk-ox gathered around Point
Barrow and thence south to Bering Straits and Port Clarence,
has been obtained from natives who have accompanied whaling
ships to the East; and all the musk-ox skins that find a market
in San Francisco have been purchased, directly or indirectly,
from the whaling ships.

Very truly yours,

ANDREW J. STONE.

Wherever explorers have gone into Eastern Arctic North America they have found the musk-ox. Lieutenant Peary, who has spent more time in the Arctic than any other living man, writes that he has killed musk-oxen at Cape Bryant on the Northwest Coast, and at the extreme northern end of Greenland Archipelago, north latitude 83° 39´, and it appears from lack of records to the contrary that they are found on all the Arctic islands except, curiously enough, the Islands of Spitzbergen and Franz Josef Land, where they are unknown. That the musk-ox does not seem to migrate on the ice from island to island as the reindeer do, is another curious fact.

Frederick Schwatka, who hunted along the Arctic Coast, and one or two of the scientists, place the southerly range of the musk-oxen at the 60th parallel, but this is fully two, if not four, degrees too far south to correctly represent their present range. Hearne saw tracks in latitude 59°, and musk-oxen in latitude 61°, in 1771, but I have never heard of musk-oxen being killed within recent years so far south as the 62d parallel. It is conceivable, however, that they might stray so far south, though in my opinion highly improbable. Pike records a musk-ox killed at Aylmer Lake, in the Barren Grounds. This is the most southerly killing that I have heard of, and the most southerly one of which Mr. Pike makes record. Aylmer Lake is just above the 64th parallel. I saw no musk-oxen below the 65th degree, and it was my experience, as well as Pike’s, that musk-oxen are not what you may, comparatively speaking, call plentiful until the 66th parallel.

(From a photograph provided by the American Museum of Natural History)]

Some writers persist in calling the musk-ox migratory, but there is no reason for doing so. When fully grown, it is about the size of the English black cattle, its height being 4 feet 2 to 4 inches at the shoulder, and its girth very large for its height. Indians estimate the flesh of a mature cow musk-ox equal to that of about three Barren Grounds caribou, which would be from three hundred to three hundred and fifty pounds; the bull may go as much as two hundred pounds heavier. They travel in herds varying from half a dozen to thirty or forty. Some authors have referred to “vast herds,” no doubt confusing musk-oxen with caribou. Fifty would be a large herd, and I suppose from ten to twenty would fairly represent the size of the average herd. As a rule, such a sized herd would have one or two bulls. I found herds that were all bulls, others that were all cows.

The robe is of a very dark brown, which seems black against the snow, and the hair all over the body is coarse and long, reaching down below the belly to the knees (especially long on the rump, where I measured some that was fifteen to twenty inches), and under the throat it hangs down as a thick mane. There appears to be a decided tendency to a hump, which is emphasized by the shorter stiffish hair that covers shoulders and the base of the neck. And there is a saddle mark of a dirty grayish white. Underneath this hair and over all the body grows a coat of mouse gray wool of fine texture, which protects the animal in winter and is shed in the summer. No wool grows on the legs, which are massive, and although short, appear to be shorter than they are because of the long hair that falls over them. In running, they have a rolling, choppy kind of a gait, and I noticed when they fell from a rifle wound they could not get on their feet again.

The growth of the horn is very interesting. It begins exactly as with domestic cattle by a straight shoot out from the head. For the first year, it is impossible to tell the difference between the sexes by the horns. In the second year, the bull horn is a little whiter than that of the cow; the forehead of a two-year musk-ox I killed showed a forehead covered with short, curlish hair. In this year the cow’s horn begins to show a downward turn, and is fully developed at its third year. The bull’s horns, on the contrary, are just beginning to spread at the base in the third year. They continue spreading toward the centre of the forehead until they meet in the bull’s fifth year, but in the sixth year they begin to separate, leaving a crevice in the centre which widens as the bull ages until it is from an inch to an inch and a half wide. In the cow these crevices also open by age to even a greater extent than in the bull. The horns of both bull and cow darken as they reach their full development, until they are quite dark from six to eight inches toward the base; and as the animal ages the extreme darkness of horn disappears, until finally in the old animal of either sex there remains only a black tip about a couple of inches on the very point of the horn. As the crevice between the horns in both sexes widens, the base of the boss on each side thickens to at least three inches in the bull and two or less in the cow. On the boss the horn is corrugated, but at the turn it becomes smooth, and is polished like an ox horn on the point.

The largest horns of which I believe there is record are owned by a taxidermist who purchased them; but the locality from which they came is unknown. Their breadth, measured up and down at the crevice of the boss, or, technically speaking, the breadth of palm, is 13¾ inches; the length of horns on outside curve, 30¼ inches. The next largest pair is in the British Museum and measures 13⅛ inches in breadth and 26¼ in length. The third is 12⅜ by 26¾, presented to the British Museum by J. Rae, an old time Hudson’s Bay Company factor, and got on the Barren Grounds. The next is 12½ by 27¼, the property of the Earl of Lonsdale, who picked up the head on his way down the Mackenzie River, several years ago. Warburton Pike holds the two next heads, one 11 by 26⅞, and the other 11 by 24¾. The largest head I killed is rather remarkable in respect to length of horn and thickness of the boss. Indian hunters who saw it, at all events, considered it most unusual. It measures 11½ by 27½; width of crevice, 1⅓ inch; thickness of boss at crevice, 3¾ inches.

The flesh of the musk-ox is exceedingly tough, and by no means pleasing to the taste, especially in the rutting season (August and September), when it is practically uneatable. There is a certain musky odor, but it is not so pronounced as generally said to be. In fact the only distinct musk-ox odor is got from breaking and crushing the dry dung. As indicative of this queer creature, I may add that musk-ox dung is but very little larger than and of very near the shape and color as that of the large hare. The flesh of the cow is by no means choice, but it is not bad; the flesh of the calf I found to be rather tasteless. The unborn calf is considered quite a delicacy, of which my Indians did not deny themselves merely because we had no cooking fire. They ate it raw, just as they took it from the mother’s stomach. Cows never give birth to more than one calf at a time, born in June.

This specimen was captured March, 1901, east of Lady Franklin Bay, about 30 miles inland, by Indians sent out by Captain H. H. Bodfish of the whaler _Beluga_. After being exhibited in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, it was bought by Hon. William C. Whitney, who presented it forthwith to the New York Zoölogical Society. It died within a few months after. It was the first live member of the musk-ox family ever brought to the United States. (Photograph used by permission of the New York Zoölogical Society.)]

On only two occasions have musk-oxen been brought alive into captivity in North America. One of these was an eighteen months’ old female caught east of Lady Franklin Bay, about thirty miles inland, by a party sent out by Captain H. H. Bodfish, of the whaler _Beluga_. This was exhibited at the Sportsmen’s Show in New York, where it was purchased by the Hon. William C. Whitney and presented to the Zoölogical Society of New York in March, 1902. The other was a younger specimen caught in Northeastern Greenland by Lieutenant Peary and brought out and presented to the Zoölogical Society by him in October of the same year. Both specimens, however, died within a few months. Up to now I believe something like a dozen live specimens have been taken out to the civilized world. All, however, at this writing, have died, except two or three. One is in a zoölogical garden at Copenhagen, another in a zoölogical garden at Berlin, and another is in England, owned by the Duke of Bedford, but exhibited, I am told, in London.

MUSK-OX

(OVIBOS MOSCHATUS[5])

In spite of its name this Arctic ruminant has no near affinity with the members of the ox tribe, the cheek teeth being more like those of the sheep and goats, the muzzle, except for a small strip between the nostrils, hairy, and the tail reduced to a mere stump concealed among the long hair of the hind quarters. On the other hand, the resemblance to the sheep is not very close, the horns, which in old males nearly meet in the middle line of the forehead, being of a totally different form and structure, and the skull likewise very distinct. In the males the horns are much flattened and expanded at the bases, after which they are bent suddenly down behind the eyes, to curve upward at the tips. In the females they are much smaller, less expanded, and not approximated at their bases. In both sexes their texture is coarse and fibrous, and their color yellow. The long coat of dark brown hair, depending from the back and sides like a mantle, affords an adequate protection against the rigors of an Arctic winter; and the broad, spreading hoofs, with hair on their under surface, give a firm foothold on snow and ice. Two races are known--the typical Canadian and the Greenland (_O. moschatus wardi_). The latter is characterized by the presence of a certain amount of white on the forehead and the smaller expansion of the horns. Height at shoulder about 4 feet; weight of one weighed in parts, 579 pounds (D. T. Hanbury).

_Distribution._--Arctic America, approximately north and east of a line drawn from the mouth of the Mackenzie River to Fort Churchill on Hudson Bay, Greenland, and Grinnell Land, in latitude 32° 27´; approximate southern limit, latitude 40° N.

MEASUREMENTS OF HORNS

========+=======+======+=================+===================
LENGTH |BREADTH| | |
ON | OF |TIP TO| LOCALITY | OWNER
OUTSIDE | PALM | TIP | |
CURVE | | | |
--------+-------+------+-----------------+-------------------
--30¼ | 13¾ | 30¼ | ? |W. W. Hart
| | | |
27¾ | 10 | 27½ |Barren grounds of|David T. Hanbury
| | |northern Canada |
| | | |
--27½ | 11¾ | 23 |Barren grounds of|Caspar Whitney
| | |northern Canada |
| | | |
27¼ | 12½ | 27 |Barren grounds of|Earl of Lonsdale
| | |northern Canada |
| | | |
--27¼ | 10⅝ | 27½ |Barren grounds of|Imperial Museum,
| | |northern Canada | Vienna
| | | |
26⅞ | 11 | 27 |Barren grounds of|Warburton Pike
| | |northern Canada |
| | | |
26¾ | 12⅜ | .. |North America |British Museum
| | | | (J. Rae)
| | | |
26¼ | 13⅛ | 27⅝ |North America |British Museum
| | | |
--25⅝ | 10 | 25 |North America |Dr. Albert von
| | | | Stephani
| | | |
24¾ | 11 | 25½ |Barren grounds |Warburton Pike
| | | |
24¼ | 7½ | 19 |Barren grounds |J. Talbot Clifton
| | | |
24¼ | 10½ | 26 |Barren grounds |Hon. Walter
| | | | Rothschild
| | | |
24 | 9¾ | 23⅛ |North America |Sir Edmund G.
| | | | Loder, Bart.
| | | |
--24 | .. | 25 | ? |Major W. Anstruther
| | | | Thomson
| | | |
23¼ | 6 | 22¾ | ? |A. Barclay Walker
| | | |
--21½ | 9 | 27 | ? |Dublin Museum
| | | |
--♀21⅛ | 4¾ | 20⅝ | ? |Imperial Museum,
| | | | Vienna
| | | |
♀18⅝ | 4¼ | .. |North America |British Museum
| | | | (A. G. Dallas)
| | | |
♀17 | 4⅝ | 9⅞ |North America |Dr. Albert von
| | | | Stephani
--------+-------+------+-----------------+-------------------

MUSK-OX (_Ovibos moschatus wardi_)

-------+--------+------+-----------------+-------------------
24¾ | 8¼ | 22½ |Greenland |Rowland Ward
| | | |
24½ | 7¼ | 27 |Greenland |Rowland Ward
=======+========+======+=================+===================

THE BISON

BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL

The buffalo was the largest and economically the most important of North American mammals. It was also one of the most numerous, and over a great area of the continent was practically the sole support of its aboriginal inhabitants. Within the memory of men who as yet are hardly middle-aged, it roamed the country between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, in multitudes so vast that it was commonly stated that its numbers could not be materially reduced, that it would exist long after the speakers had died. Yet, within thirty years it has so absolutely disappeared that the number of living wild buffalo existing to-day is probably not greater than the herd of European bison--commonly, but erroneously, called aurochs--so carefully preserved in the forests of Lithuania by the Russian Czar.

The history of the buffalo’s extermination has been many times written, and the cause of its disappearance is not far to seek. It was killed in great numbers by the Indians, who used its flesh for food, its skin for clothing and for their shelters. Yet, under natural conditions, the destruction which they wrought was never very extensive, and was more than compensated for by the annual increase. Wolves, bears, and other wild animals which were found in great numbers throughout the buffalo’s range in old days, devoured many of them; but these were largely the aged, wounded, and crippled, or those which were drowned in the rivers, or mired in quicksands and mud-holes. All this destruction by natural enemies did little more than keep the race in good condition, by cutting off the sickly and the feeble.

When, however, the white man appeared on the scene, new conditions arose. The buffalo had a robe which was as useful to the white man as to the Indian. A trade speedily sprang up in these robes, which the Indians were glad to kill and tan for a cupful of sugar, or a few charges of powder and ball, or a drink or two of alcohol. Now, the Indians had a motive for killing which heretofore they had not had. They killed more buffalo and made more robes than before, but still they made no impression on the wandering millions which swayed to and fro under the influence of the seasons. Steamboats might pass down the Missouri River loaded to the guards with bales of robes, but the vast herds of buffalo showed no diminution. The early white explorers, or trappers, or traders, did not themselves take the trouble to collect buffalo hides; there were more valuable furs in the country, beaver and otter and bears, which brought better prices, and--more important than this--did not require to be tanned before they became marketable. For a buffalo skin untanned was never shipped; it was only after some Indian woman had expended on it days of patient labor, that it would bring at the trading post the pitiful reward which the white man gave.

At last, however,--and that was less than forty years ago,--a railroad began to push its way out on to the broad plains lying between the Missouri River and the Rockies, and to thrust itself into the very region where the buffalo fed. Over the shining rails of this railroad trains began to pass, carrying passengers; and among these were many white men eager for gain. These at once saw the possibilities of the buffalo. At first they killed them for meat, but soon the hides began to be shipped also. And other men, learning that the buffalo hides brought $2.00 each, and that buffalo were to be had for the trouble of shooting them, crowded into the range.

Then there began along the Platte Valley in Nebraska, a scene of slaughter which has seldom been equalled. The country was full of buffalo skinners. Each hunter had his teams, and his gangs of skinners which followed him about from place to place, and cared for the hides of the beasts which he killed. In some places the only water accessible was the Platte River, and here the buffalo came to drink. Here, too, the hunters, concealed in ravines or in rifle-pits that they had dug, shot down the beasts one by one, as they came to water, and, indeed, formed so complete a cordon along the river’s banks, that the buffalo could not get through and turned back into the hills. When at night the thirsty herds tried to approach the river under cover of darkness, they found that the hunters had built along the bottom great fires, which they kept up all night, and which the scared buffalo did not dare to pass.

It took but a little time to split the herd which for centuries had passed across the valley north and south with the seasons. It was about 1870 when this work began, and in 1874 the buffalo were last seen in the valley of the Platte. The herd had been split.

As other railroads to the southward pushed into the buffalo country, the same scenes were enacted. The buffalo country swarmed with hunters who came in constantly increasing numbers, so that none of them earned any money by their butcher’s work. The price of hides fell, but the buffalo continued to be slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands of hides went to market, but these were only a small proportion of the buffalo killed. Colonel Dodge has expressed the belief, that of the buffalo killed, only one-fourth or one-fifth reached a market. It is conceivable that the proportion was even less. A very large number of the hunters knew nothing about hunting, or shooting, or skinning a buffalo, or curing its hide. The number of maimed and crippled animals that went off to die was very large. The number of hides ruined in skinning was large, and the number improperly cured was still larger.

By the latter part of 1874, buffalo to the southward of the Platte River began to be very scarce, and in 1876 they were almost gone. After that none were found in the southern country except a few in the southern portion of the Indian Territory and in the waterless country of the pan-handle of Texas. There, protected by the drought, and so few in number as to present little attraction to the skin hunter, a few lingered for some years, until finally captured or destroyed by Buffalo Jones in his expeditions after calves for domestication.

In the northern country the buffalo lingered longer. The Northern Pacific Railroad, built as far west as Bismarck on the Missouri River in 1873, stopped there for six or seven years, and it was not until it had been continued well beyond the Missouri that it again entered the buffalo range and brought with it, as was inevitable, the buffalo skinner. When he came, he did the work he had done in the South, and did it as effectively. But as the number of buffalo left in the northern herd was small, it took only two or three years to destroy them.

After 1883, except for a band of about five thousand which had been overlooked on one of the Sioux reservations, there were no buffalo left in the northern country except a few scattering individuals, which, hidden in out-of-the-way places, had been overlooked by the hunters and Indians, and so for a year or two were preserved from slaughter. In the arid region about the heads of the Dry Fork and Porcupine Creek in Montana, one of these little groups was left, which yielded to expeditions sent out by the National Museum and the American Museum of Natural History, a series of specimens, probably the last of this species ever to be collected for science. They were brought together just in time, for since then there have been no buffalo.

A small herd of the so-called wood bison still inhabits the vast wilderness between Athabasca Lake and Lesser Slave Lake, but their numbers are few. In the year 1900 there were two little bunches of wild buffalo in the United States, perhaps neither of them numbering more than fifteen or twenty head. In the summer of 1901 one of these bunches, which had long ranged in Lost Park, Colorado, was wiped out by poachers, while for some years nothing has been heard of the other little band which ranged in Montana, and which, in 1895, numbered forty or fifty head, no less than thirty-two of which were killed a year or two later by Red River half-breeds who made a special trip to their range. At present the only important band of buffalo in the United States is that ranging within the confines of the National Park, and it is altogether probable that this does not number more than twenty-five or thirty.

No doubt the extraordinary abundance of the buffalo had something to do with the wastefulness of the slaughter which followed the railroad building into the buffalo range. Many people no doubt really believed that in their time the buffalo could not be exterminated. They seemed to reason that as there always had been “millions of buffalo” there always would be. Men killed buffalo for any foolish, childish reason that might come into their heads,--to try their guns, to see whether they could hit them, for fun!

How wantonly even some of the first traders destroyed them is often shown by the few writings that have come down to us from those early days. Henry, in his Journal of August, 1800, tells of the way in which he and some of his men passed the time while waiting for others of his people to come up. He says, “We amused ourselves by lying in wait, close under the bank, for the buffalo which came to drink. When the poor brutes came to within about ten yards of us, on a sudden we would fire a volley of twenty-five guns at them, killing and wounding many. We only took the tongues. The Indians suggested that we should all fire together at one lone bull which appeared, to have the satisfaction, as they said, of killing him stone dead. The beast advanced till he was within six or eight paces, when the yell was given, and all hands let fly; but instead of falling he galloped off, and it was only after several more discharges that he was brought to the ground. The Indians enjoyed this sport highly--it is true, the ammunition cost them nothing.”

There has been much misunderstanding as to the former distribution of the buffalo over the North American continent, and the extent of territory through which it was found. Many respected authorities have declared that it occurred in Eastern Canada, and generally along the Atlantic slope; in portions of New England, the Middle states, and south even into Florida. It was said in general terms that the buffalo occurred over the entire continent of North America, from Florida to the 50th degree of north latitude.

These loose statements were corrected by Dr. J. A. Allen, in his most important monograph on the American bisons, and it is now well understood that the range of the buffalo included only about one-third of the continent; that, while it was found on the Atlantic slope, this was only in the southeastern portion of its range; while in Canada, New England, and Florida, it was probably unknown.

The error into which early writers were led on this subject undoubtedly arose from the terms used by the earlier explorers, who spoke constantly of _vaches_, or _vaches sauvages_, and less frequently of buffu or buffle. But the term _wild cows_, used by the early French Jesuits and English explorers, referred to the elk (_Cervus canadensis_), while the words _buffu_ or _buffle_ were used to designate moose (_Alces_). In some of the narratives of the journeys of the Jesuit travellers, there appear on almost every page references to the herds of _vaches sauvages_, and many of these writers, at one time or another, describe these wild cows in such unmistakable language as to show beyond question that they were the elk or wapiti.

Dr. Allen assigns the Alleghany Mountains as the general eastern boundary of the range of the buffalo, although explaining that it frequently passed beyond that range, and showing conclusively that it occurred in the western portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia. Mr. Hornaday cites some evidence to show that it occurred in the District of Columbia, and quotes Francis Moore, in his “Voyage to Georgia,” to prove that there, at least, buffalo were found close to the salt water.

While Dr. Allen gives the Tennessee River as the southern boundary of the buffalo’s range, west of the Alleghanies and east of the Mississippi River, Mr. Hornaday quotes a number of references to show that it occurred in some numbers in what is now the state of Mississippi, and gives a tradition of the Choctaws, narrated by Clayborne, in regard to the disappearance of the species from that section. This tradition is to the effect that during the early part of the eighteenth century a great drought occurred there by which the whole country was dried up. For three years not a drop of rain fell. Large streams went dry, and the forest trees all died. Up to that time, it is said, elk and buffalo had been numerous there, but during this drought these animals crossed the Mississippi River and never returned.

In the eastern portion of its range, the Great Lakes formed a barrier on the north which the buffalo did not pass; but from western New York westward, it was found in numbers along the southern shores of these lakes, and in the territory now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Audubon tells us that in the first years of the nineteenth century there were buffalo in Kentucky, but declares that about 1810, or soon after, they all disappeared. This disappearance was due chiefly to their actual destruction by white men and by Indians, and not, as is commonly stated, to the retiring of the great herds before the advance of settlement and civilization. It seems that the last buffalo were killed east of the Mississippi River about the year 1820, although it may be that in Wisconsin and Minnesota they lasted somewhat longer.

West of the Great Lakes, and turning sharply northward so as to run nearly northwest, the eastern border of the buffalo’s range west of the Mississippi was a line running very near the western extremity of Lake Superior, up through the Lake of the Woods, west of Lake Winnipeg, and thence northward to and beyond the Great Slave Lake. There this border line turned to the west, and then sharply to the south, and meeting the Rocky Mountains not far from where Peace River leaves them, followed the range south, about to the 49th parallel; and then turning southwestwardly and including Idaho, a part of eastern Oregon, the northeast corner of Nevada, the greater portion of Utah, and most of New Mexico, the line passed down south well into Mexico, turning eastwardly just north of the 25th parallel of latitude, and running north to the coast, which it followed around again to the mouth of the Mississippi.

As it has been known in our day, the buffalo in the southern portion of its range was a trans-Missouri animal. North of the parallel of 45 degrees it was found in equal numbers on both sides of the Missouri River, and in its northern extension reached, and possibly even to-day reaches, north to Great Slave Lake; for, as already stated, the only considerable band of wild buffalo to-day is the wood bison of the north, estimated to number four hundred or five hundred.

Besides the boundaries thus set forth, it is probable that in early days there was a considerable extension of the buffalo’s range northward and westward, into portions of what is now Alaska. Certain it is that in that territory buffalo remains have been found in great numbers. Some of these skulls belong to species long extinct, and much larger than the American bison; but, on the other hand, there are many which are closely similar to that species.