Part 4

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.

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.

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.