its name is the secretion of any special scent-gland, but further details
of its anatomy are required before this can be regarded as definitely
ascertained.
The following dimensions of horns are recorded by Mr. Rowland
W a rd !-1 1
Length along
Outer Curve.
Width of Basal
Expansion. Tip to Tipi ; Locality.
2 9% !3 ? ?
27i 124 27 N. America
z6f 1 J&3 -27— N. Canada
26| I2 f ? N. America
a6£ 27t
1 I 2 Si N. Canada
IOJ 26 „
24 ? 30 N. America
24 9f 23i „
22| 9i J9i Grinnell-land.
2Ii 9 27 p
Good horns of females measure between 18 and 19 inches along the
outer curvature, with a basal expansion of about 4 inches.
Distribution.— At the present day Arctic America, eastwards of the
Mackenzie river and northwards of the 60th parallel through Parry
Islands and Grinnell-land (lat. 82° 27') to the north of Greenland, on the
western coast of which it extends as far south as Melville Bay, and on the
eastern coast to Sabine Island. Unknown in Spitzbergen or Franz Joseph
Land, as it is in Alaska, although it formerly extended at least as far as
Eschscholtz Bay. During the Plistocene period a large part of Europe
and Northern Asia, ranging as far as the Alps and Pyrenees.
Colonel Feilden states that at the present day the distributional area of
the musk-ox includes about two-thirds of the coast-line of Greenland.
He concludes that the advent of the animal in that country has been from
the westward, and that the progenitors of the herds now living on the east
coast rounded the north of Greenland and spread southwards until they
encountered some physical obstacle, such as the glaciers of Cape Farewell,
capable of barring their further progress. Probably the same has been the
case also on the western coast, where the great glaciers debouching into
Melville Bay would appear to have set a limit to the wanderings of the
animal in thisi direction. “ The distribution of the musk-ox along the
shores of Greenland,” continues the same writer, “ covers an immense
coast-line; we have traced it from Polaris Bay, on the north-west side of
Greenland, from about 81° north to Independence Bay on the north-east
coast in about the same latitude, and from there as far/§puth as the seventieth
parallel. On the east coast of Greenland the range of the musk-ox in a
line drawn- Over the map from north t i l south embraces at least 700
geographical miles.”
The British Museum possesses skulls of the existing musk-ox from the
frozen superficial deposits of Eschscholtz Bay, Alaska, found in company
with those of the Plistocene bison and the mammoth.
The Russian naturalist Pallas discovered, two skulls of the musk-ox in
the superficial deposits of Northern Asia, one on the banks of the Obi, and
the other farther north in the Siberian tundra. It was these, specimens
that were mentioned by Holl as Bos mdschatus, and much later on by De
Kay as Bos pallasi. Subsequently other remains were discovered by the
late Prof. Lartet in Perigord, in association with remain§||pf man, the
reindeer, and the bison. They have also been, found in various parts of
Central Europe, notably near Ulm, in Wiirtemberg, in association with
bones of the reindeer, the mammoth, and the woolly rhinoceros. Similar
remains have been disinterred from the Plistocene gravels of several districts
of England, such as those of Maidenhead, Bromley, Freshfield near Bath,
and Barnwood near Gloucester, as well as from the brick-earths of the
Thames Valley at Crayford in Kent. In 1883 Mr. W. B. Dawkins described
the imperfect skull of a musk-ox found at Trimingham which there seems
every probability was derived from the Norfolk forest-bed, forming the
u