Muskox

“ The musk-ox, as his name implies, throws out a strong odour of musk,—with which, indeed, his very flesh is impregnated, so that the scent is communicated to the knife used in cutting up the animal. Not the less is he regarded as a valuable booty by the Indians and the Eskimos, who hunt him eagerly. He wanders in small troops over the rocky prairies which extend to the north of the great lakes of North America. He is a fierce-tempered animal, and in defence of his female will fight desperately. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is probable, if we get near enough to one of them, that we shall have no trouble in shooting him; but there is sometimes danger in this sport. A sailor once went out to hunt musk-oxen, and, to his great surprise, soon found that they intended to hunt him. A herd got after him, and one big fellow was on the point of crushing him with his great horns, when he dodged behind a rock, against which the furious animal came like a battering-ram.
In the fall and winter the flesh of the musk-ox is very good indeed, but in the spring it is not so nice. ”

“ When they have caught up with the musk-ox herd, he then looses them and he is there to begin action. The Eskimo dogs are very superior in breed to those used by the Indians farther south, and are trained as well to run mute.
The chances of getting musk-oxen in the Barren Grounds are not so good in summer as in winter, because travelling by canoe you are, of course, bound to keep to the chain of lakes, and your course is therefore prescribed, it being impossible to travel over the land at will as it is in winter when all is frozen. One day’s hunting is about like another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sir John Chardin [243] says, Musk is also produced in Persia from an Impostume in the Body of a Beast, that resembles a Goat, and grows near the Navel, and is better than that of China. The Scent of it, adds he, is so strong, that it many times kills those who hunt the Beast, when they first open the Bag, except they stop their Mouths and Noses with Linnen: ’Tis easily counterfeited, and the best way to try it, is by drawing a Thread, dipt in the Juice of Garlick, thro’ the Bag with a Needle; and if the Garlick loses its Scent, the Musk is good. ”

“ The musk-ox lives mostly in herds of a score or more, and, contrary to what we would naturally suppose, it runs with great speed, and climbs rocky hills with facility. The flesh of the young animals is very good, but that of the older ones is too strongly impregnated with musk to be palatable to white men, although the Indians and Esquimaux may not seriously object to it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE Musk Ox is strictly an Arctic animal and is not to be met with below the circle. The northern part of Greenland and Grantland, the Barren Grounds east of Mackenzie River, and the Arctic Islands, north of Hudson Bay, is the home of our musky friend. He is not handsome, but is majestic in appearance, measuring six and one-half feet long and four and one-half feet high. ”

“ A hare that was shot gave them the first full meal for nearly forty days. With snow falling around them, and without tent or covering of any kind, they lay down on the ground to sleep.
Waking in the morning as tired and hungry as ever, they found the tracks of musk-oxen [Footnote: Musk-oxen: the musk-ox has long shaggy hair and somewhat resembles a buffalo.] in the snow, and their hopes rose as they endeavoured to follow the trail. Sweeping the valley with their field-glass, they could see no sign of a living thing ”

“ It may as well be stated in this place that the spot where the animals were shot was about thirty miles inland from the home of Docak, and a great many leagues south of Upernavik, the most northernmost settlement on the Greenland coast. It is beyond this quaint Arctic town, in the neighborhood of Melville Bay, that the musk ox has his true habitat. There, although the animals are diminishing in number, he may be found by any one who chooses to hunt for him. ”

“ The Greenland animal is a distinct race (O. m. wardi) , distinguished by white hair on the forehand; and it is suggested that the one from Grinnell Land forms a third race. As proved by the discovery of fossil remains, musk-oxen ranged during the Pleistocene period over northern Siberia and the plains of Germany and France, their bones occurring in river-deposits along with those of the reindeer, mammoth, and woolly rhinoceros. ”

“ They slope downward at the sides, and then curve forward and outward, at the same time tapering to a sharp point, which renders them efficient weapons. These characteristics, although intermediate between those of the sheep and the ox, are more strongly inclined to the former. In reality, however, the musk-ox is more goat-like than sheep-like, as is indicated by its covering of hair, its short sturdy legs, the cannon-bone being remarkably short, and its ability as a climber. ”

“ The following representation of the head is from a specimen in the British Museum.
[Pg 115]
THE MUSK OX. Bos Moschatus.
The Musk-ox, in its external appearance, more nearly resembles the Yak of Thibet than any other member of the Bos genus; and they both inhabit mountainous districts near regions of perpetual snow.
The horns of the Musk Bull are remarkably broad at their bases, which are closely united; they bend down on each side of the head, with an outward curve turning upwards towards their ends, which taper to a sharp point. ”

“ Away back in the dim ages, the Musk Ox roamed over Europe and Asia and in North America, as far south as Kentucky, Missouri and Utah. They are not inclined to be savage unless attacked. They are of great service to the people who inhabit the Arctic countries. ”

“ They can defend themselves by their powerful horns against the wolves and bears which, as the Indians say, they not unfrequently kill.
The musk-oxen feed on the same substances with the reindeer, and the prints of the feet of these two animals are so much alike that it requires the eye of an experienced hunter to distinguish them. ”

“ The only natural enemies of musk-oxen are wolves, and against these and the primitive weapons of the Eskimos they hold their own very well.
When the Greely Expedition landed at Lady Franklin Bay in 1881, musk-oxen were encountered 465 and killed practically on the site where winter quarters were established. Since then several exploring and hunting parties have taken heavy toll from the herds of that region. Some accounts of the wholesale killings do not make pleasant reading for one who desires the perpetuation of our native species. ”

“ Doughnuts, ex-barkeepers, and civilization at one end of the lake, and here were muskrat-skins, trappers, and the primeval. Two hunters of moose, in default of their fern-horned, blubber-lipped game, had condescended to muskrat, and were making the lower end of Chesuncook fragrant with muskiness.
It is surprising how hospitable and comrade a creature is man. The trappers of muskrats were charmingly brotherly. ”

“ That muskeg is only one of thousands, when you go seventy miles north of the Saskatchewan, sixty miles east of Athabasca Lake. That muskeg and its like, covering an area two-thirds of all Europe, is the home of all the little furs, mink and muskrat and fisher and otter and rabbit and ermine, the furs that clothe—not princes and millionaire, who buy silver fox and sea otter—but you and me and the rest of us whose object is to keep warm, not to show how much we can spend. ”

“ As part of the produce of the late voyage, sixty-eight Musk Oxen will be noticed; ten of these were from East Greenland, the remainder from the mainland of Arctic America in the form of skins procured from the natives. This is sad reading, for not only does it threaten the extinction of this most interesting animal, but also of one of the food supplies of the Indians and Esquimaux of this sterile land, who maintain at the best a very precarious existence on the flesh of the Reindeer, the Walrus, and the Musk Ox ”

“ The arrows of Mosco at the first made them pause upon the matter, thinking by his bruit and skipping, there were many savages. About half an hour this continued, then they all vanished as suddenly as they approached. Mosco followed them so far as he could see us, till they were out of sight. As we returned there lay a savage as dead, shot in the knee; but taking him up we found he had life: which Mosco seeing, never was dog more furious against a bear, than Mosco was to beat out his brains. ”

“ Musk-oxen are gregarious in habit, assembling in herds of twenty or thirty head, or sometimes eighty or a hundred, in which there are seldom more than two or three full-grown males. They run with considerable speed, notwithstanding the shortness of their legs. ”

“ Off Moskonisi. At dawn this morning we came to Moskonisi, luminous in the sea. A decrepit shepherd led a flock of sheep along the beach. His name is Panayotis and he has a Homeric past; he killed two Turkish guards who courted a beautiful sister-in-law before marriage. Then he killed two others for a pusillanimous brother-in-law after marriage, and he has also sent two other Turks to their rest, though H. does not know the reason for their death. ”

“ We worked at these problems step by step in Milwaukee and made a good deal of progress.
The reindeer and orang-outang work encouraged me to suggest a series of groups of the fur-bearing [Pg 10] animals of Wisconsin, the muskrat group to be the first of the series. This suggestion was more tolerated than encouraged when it was first made, but I went as far as I could go with my dream and before I left there I finished the muskrat group, as I did most of my early experiments, in spite of the opposition of the authorities. ”

“ What sort of a muzhik?"
"Why a plain ordinary muzhik. A muzhik like all other muzhiks. He would get the breakfast rolls for us right away, and he could also catch partridges and fish for us."
"Hm, a muzhik. But where are we to fetch one from, if there is no muzhik here?"
"Why shouldn't there be a muzhik here? There are muzhiks everywhere. All one has to do is hunt for them. There certainly must be a muzhik hiding here somewhere so as to get out of working."
This thought so cheered the Officials that they instantly jumped up to go in search of a muzhik. ”

“ In assorting muskrats, buyers usually pay more attention to size and primeness of pelt than they do to the fur, because it is generally conceded that the average run of 'rat fur is good. Nature endows the muskrat with a dense coat of fur, which, in fact, is a necessity to further its welfare in the icy waters in which it lives. ”

“ Secund. adv. Jovinianum, ed. Vallarsii, ii. col. 337. c. 545.—"This little animal is the Musk (μόσχος) . The natives call it in their own tongue καστοῦρι. They hunt it and shoot it, and binding tight the blood collected about the navel they cut this off, and this is the sweet smelling part of it, and what we call musk."—Cosmas Indicopleustes, Bk. xi. ”

“ And whenever I have found out anything about Upweekis it has generally come unexpectedly, as most good things do.
Once the chance came as I was watching a muskrat at his supper. It was twilight in the woods. I had drifted in close to shore in my canoe to see what Musquash was doing on top of a rock. All muskrats have favorite eating places—a rock, a stranded log, a tree boll that leans out over the water, and always a [115] pretty spot—whither they bring food from a distance, evidently for the purpose of eating it where they feel most at home. ”

“ On the Fourth of July, 1899, in a broad level valley in the heart of Ellermore Land, I came upon a herd of five musk-oxen. When they saw us they ran together and stood back to back in star form, with heads outward, This is their usual method of defense against walrus, their only enemies in this land. After they were shot, I discovered two tiny calves, which till then had been hidden under their mothers’ hairy bodies. ”