may eventually prove to be a distinct species, or merely a permanent variety,' no
inconvenience can result from describing it, for the present, under a name already
appropriated to it. In the Museum of the Linnean Society there is a good
specimen of a sheep from the mountains of Nepaul, which does not appear to
differ from the Siberian argali, but seems very distinct from the American one.
D E S C R IP T IO N .
Size, much greater than the largest-sized varieties of the domestic sheep. It is bigger than
the argali.
The horns of the male are very large, arise a short way above the eyes, and occupy almost
the whole space between the ears, but do not touch each other at their bases. They curve
first backwards, then downwards, forwards and upwards, until they form a complete turn,
during the whole course of which they recede from the side of the head in a spiral, manner.
They diminish in size rapidly towards their points, which are turned upwards. At their bases,
and for a considerable portion of their length, they are three-sided, the anterior or upper side
being, as it were, thickened, and projecting obtusely at its union with the two others. This
side is marked by transverse furrows, which are less deep the further they are from the scull y
and towards the tips the horns are rounded, and but obscurely wrinkled.. The furrows'extend
to the other two sides of the horn, but are there less distinct. The intervals of the furrows
swell out, or are rounded.
The horns of the female Eire much smaller, and nearly erect, having but a slight curvature,
and an inclination backwards and outwards.
The ears are of a moderate size; the facial line straight, and the general form of thé
animal rather elegant, being intermediate betwixt that of thè sheep and the stag. Tail very
short. The hair is like that of the rein-deer, being, on its first growth in the autumn, shorty
fine, and flexible; but, as the winter advances, becoming much.coarser, dry, and brittle, though
at the same time it feels soft to the touch. In the latter season the hair is so close at its
roots, that it is necessarily erect. The legs are covered with shorter hairs.
The head, buttocks, and posterior part of the belly, are white; the rest of the body and the
n.eck are of a pale umber or dusky wood-brown colour. A deeper and more shining brown
prevails on the anterior aspect of the legs. The tail is dark-brown, and a narrow brown line,
extending from its base, runs up betwixt the white buttocks, to unite with the brown colour of
the back. The colours reside in the ends of the hair, and as these are rubbed off during the
progress of the winter, the tints become paler. The old rams are almost totally white in the
spring. This is the case with the male specimen in our plate. The female, in the back
ground, presented the colours mentioned above.
D im e n s io n s
Of an-Old Rocky-Mountain Ram, killed on the south branch of the Mackenzie, and now in the Zoological Museum.
•Length of head and:body
Feet.
. 6
Inches.
0
Height at.fore-shoulder .3 5 .
Length of tail . . 0 2
. . y, one. horn, measured
along its
curvature . . °
. 2 10
F e e t Inches».
Circumference of'a: horn- at its base . 1 I
Distance from.the tip.of one hom to the tip
of the other , . . ' . 2 7?
£81.] 1. Ovibos moschatus. (BlainviUe.) Musk-Ox.
G e n u s . Ovibos. B l a in v i l l e .
Le boeuf musqué. M. J eremie, Voy.au Nord, t. iii. p. 314. Charlevoix, N ouv. France, t. v. p. 194.
Musk-Ox. D r a g e , Voy., vol. ii. p.260. D o b r s , Hudson's Bay, pp. 19, 25. E l l i s , Voy., p. 232. P e n n a n t ,
Quadr., vol. i. p. 31. Arctic Zool., vol. i. p. 9. H e a u n e , Journey, p. 137. P a r r y , First Voy., p. 257,
with a plate. SecondVoy., pp. 497, 503, 512. B r i t i s h M u s e u m . Specimen on the stair.
Bos moschatus. G m e l i n , Syst. Sa b in e .(G a p t Parry's First Voy., Suppl.,.p . c lx x x ix . Sa b in e (M r .) , Franklin's
Joum., p. 668. R ic h a r d s o n , Parry's Second Voy., Appendix, p. 331.
Matheh-moostoos (u g ly bison.) C r é é I n d ia n s .
Adgiddah-yawseh (little bison.) Ch e p e w y a n s and C o p p e r I n d ia n s .
© om in gm a k . E s q u im a u x .
We are indebted for the first notice of this animal to M. Jeremie, who brought
some of its wool to France, and had some stockings made of it, which were said
to have been more beautiful than silk. The earlier English voyagers also give us
some information respecting it, but Pennant has the merit of being the first who
systematically arranged and described it, from the skin of a specimen sent home
by Hearne, the celebrated traveller. From its-want of a naked muzzle and some
other peculiarities, M. Blainville has placed it in a genus, intermediate, as its
name denotes, between the sheep and the ox ; but it is remarkable amongst the
American animals for never having had more than one specific appellation, whilst
other animals, of much less interest, have been honoured with a long list of
synonyms.
The musk-ox inhabits the Barren-lands of America lying to the northward of
the sixtieth parallel of latitude*. Hearne mentions that he once saw tracks of one
within a few miles of Fort Churchill, in latitude 59° ; and in his first journey to the
north, he saw many in about latitude 61°. I have been informed that they do not
now come so far to the southward even on the Hudson’s Bay shore; and further
to the westward they are rarely seen in any numbers lower than latitude 67°,
although from portions of their sculls and horns, which are occasionally found
near the northern borders of Great Slave Lake, it is probable that they ranged
at no very distant period over the whole country lying betwixt that great sheet of
water and the Polar sea. I have not heard of their having been seen on the
banks of Mackenzie’s River to the southward of Great Bear Lake, nor do they
* Pennant says, that they are found in the lands of the Cris or Cristinaux, and Assinibouls ; this is, however, a
mistake. The lands he alludes to, are the plains which extend from the Red River of Lake Winipeg to the Saskatchewan,
and are inhabited by the Crees or Natkeh-wyà-ioithinyoo, and the Asseeneepools or Asseeneepoytuck ; but it
is the bison that frequents that district, and not the musk-ox. He is correct, however, in-saying that they are hunted
by the Attimospiquay, who are the Dog-ribsoî Great Bear Lake.
2 N 2