But if the Polar Flora offers few details of interest, it is otherwise with the Polar Fauna. The most important orders of the Animal Kingdom, and particularly of the class _Mammalia_, are there represented by species not less worthy of attention than those that people the savage countries of the torrid and temperate zones. * * * * * Among the _Ruminantia_ we may mention the Eland and the Stag of Canada, which range--the former in the Old and New Continents, the latter in the New World only--to a very high latitude; but, to confine myself to the characteristic species of the Hyperborean Fauna, I shall here speak only of the Musk-Ox and the Reindeer. The Musk-Ox, or Ovibos (_Ovibos Moschatus_), is, as its zoological name indicates, an intermediate animal between the ox and the sheep. Smaller than the former, larger than the latter, he reminds us equally of both in his form and appearance. He has an obtuse nose; horns broad at the base, covering the forehead and crown of the head, and curving downwards between the eye and ear until about the level of the mouth, where they turn upwards; the tail is short, and almost lost in the thickness of the hair, which is generally of a dark brown, and of two kinds, as with all the animals of Polar regions,--a long hair, which on some parts of the body is thick and curled, and, beneath it, a fine kind of soft, ash-coloured wool; the legs are short and thick, and furnished with narrow hoofs, resembling those of the moose. The female is smaller than the male, and has also smaller horns. Her general colour is black, except that the legs are whitish; and along the back runs an elevated ridge or mane of dusky hair. The musk-ox, as might be inferred from his name, exhales a strong odour of musk, with which his very flesh is impregnated, and which communicates itself to the knife employed in cutting him up. Not the less is he esteemed a precious prey by the Indians and Eskimos, who hunt him actively. He wanders in small herds over the rocky prairies which stretch to the north of the great lakes of North America. He is an irascible animal, and will fight desperately in defence of the female. * * * * * The Reindeer (_Cervus Turandus_) is about the size of our English stag, but of a squatter and less graceful form. He stands about four feet six inches high. His head is crowned with remarkably long and slender horns; and they have branched, recurved, and round antlers, whose summits are palmated. His colour is brown above and white beneath; but as the animal advances in age, it changes into a grayish-white, and is sometimes almost wholly white. The nether part of the neck droops like a kind of hanging beard. His hoofs are large, long, and black; and so are the secondary hoofs behind. The latter, while the reindeer is running, make by their collision a curious clattering sound, which may be heard at a considerable distance.