BIG-HORN MOUNTAIN SHEEP RAM.
Suleiman Markhor. Arcal Mountain Sheep. Mouflon. Persian Wild Goat. Himalayan Tahr. Aoudad.
Because of the curious (and unaccountable) fact that they do not thrive on Mountain Sheep Hill, the Rocky Mountain Goat and Chamois are exhibited elsewhere. The former will be found near the Pheasant Aviary, next to the Musk-ox.
Visitors are requested to make note of the fact that in winter, the Arcal Sheep, Mouflon, and other delicate sheep are exhibited in the Small-Deer House.
The White-Fronted Musk-Ox, (Ovibos wardi, Lydekker), is represented in the Park by a herd of six specimens. Five of these animals were born in May, 1910, in Ellesmere Land, and captured in that year by Paul J. Rainey and Harry C. Whitney, and presented by Mr. Rainey. The sixth individual, a vigorous and rather vicious female, was born on Melville Island, in May, 1909, and captured by Captain Joseph Bernier. Owing to the domineering temper of “Miss Melville,” it is not possible to keep her with the animals a year younger than herself, because she resents their presence in her corral.
The Musk-Ox is an animal of strange form, inhabiting a small portion of the Arctic regions of the western hemisphere, up to the very northernmost points of land east of the Mackenzie River. At Fort Conger (Latitude 81°, 40′), its flesh was a godsend to General Greely, and later on to Commander Peary, also. Structurally, this animal stands in a genus of its own (Ovibos), midway between the cattle and the sheep, but it is unqualifiedly a misnomer to call it a “musk-sheep.”
An adult male Musk-Ox stands 4 ft. 5 in. high at the shoulders and is 6 ft. 7 in. in total length. Our first specimen was a female, two years old. She stood 3 ft. 2 in. high at the shoulders, and was 4 ft. 10 in. in total length. Her entire body was covered by a dense mass of fine light brown hair, of a woolly nature, overlaid by a thatch of very long, straight hair specially designed to shed rain.
The Musk-Ox inhabits the Barren Grounds of northern Canada north of Latitude 64° from Great Bear Lake to Hudson Bay, Grant Land, and the northeast coast of Greenland from Franz Josef Fiord (Latitude 70°) to the most northerly point of land. About twenty living specimens have been taken when very young at Franz Josef Fiord, by Swedish and Norwegian whaling parties. The Peary Arctic Club, of New York, presented to the New York Zoological Society a young calf which was captured by Commander Peary at Fort Conger, in 1902, but it lived only a few months.
MOUFLON