The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

The Defensive Circle of the Musk-Ox. Several arctic explorers have described the wonderful living-ring defense, previously mentioned, of musk-ox herds against wolves. Mr. Paul Rainey's moving pictures have shown it to us in thrilling detail, with Eskimo dogs instead of wolves. When a musk-ox herd is attacked by the big and deadly arctic white wolves, the bulls and adult cows herd the calves and young stock into a compact group, then take their places shoulder to shoulder around them in a perfect circle, and with lowered heads await the onset. The sharp down-and-up curved horn of the musk-ox is a deadly weapon against all the dangerous animals of the North, except man. When a wolf approaches near and endeavors to make a breach in the circle, the musk-ox nearest him tries to get him, and will even rush out of the line for a short and brief pursuit. But the bull does not pursue more than twenty yards or so, for fear of being surrounded alone and cut off. At the end of his usually futile run, back he goes and carefully backs into his place in the first line of defense. A charging bull does not rush out far enough that the wolves can cut him off and kill him. He is much too wise for that. Mr. Stefansson says that the impregnability of the musk-ox defense is so well recognized by the wolves of the North that often a pack will march past a herd in close proximity without offering to attack it, and without even troubling the herd to form the hollow circle.