To me every living musk-ox is a source of continual wonder. I am staggered by the fact that a warm-blooded animal, quite sheep-like in its general nature and mode of life, and which lives well in New York City, can survive and thrive and breed and be happy on the most northerly land in the world. The fact that whole herds of musk-ox can find food throughout the awful Arctic night, survive storms of unbelievable violence and duration, and cold that the human mind scarce can comprehend,--and voluntarily live under such conditions,--seems almost beyond belief. And yet here in New York, wet in winter and hot in summer, we keep musk-ox comfortable in captivity for five years; and they do not suffer from the heat as much as do the men who take care of them. A part of our success is due to the fact that we keep our musk-ox _dry_, and never allow cold rains to come upon them. They have not yet bred; and we are at a loss to understand why. A naturalist-historian given to light speaking might be tempted to say that the two musk-ox species were developed and placed in the frozen North for the support of explorers, and the promotion of geographic knowledge. For example, without the musk-ox herds as a base, Peary might never have attained the North Pole. It was he who killed and ate a musk-ox at the most northerly point of land in the world,--the northeast corner of Greenland. Whole herds of musk-ox have been killed and eaten by hungry explorers and the Eskimos and their dogs. The flesh of this animal should taste more like mutton than beef, but the man does not live who could distinguish it from beef of the same age. Evidently there are conditions under which a musk-ox bull has a perceptibly musky odor, but I have never been able to detect the slightest trace of it in any of the animals of my personal acquaintance. There are two species. The _White-Fronted Musk-ox_ has a broad band of soiled white hair across its face, just below the horns; and it inhabits Greenland and all the islands and lands westward thereof, down to the mainland of North America. The _Barren Ground Musk-ox_ is the one of the Barren Grounds of northern Canada, and its lowest latitude is 64°, at the head of Chesterfield Inlet, which is at the northwestern corner of Hudson Bay.