Good musk is of a dark purplish colour, dry, smooth, and unctuous to the touch and bitter in taste. It dissolves in boiling water to the extent of about one-half, alcohol takes up one-third of the substance, and ether and chloroform dissolve still less. A grain of musk will distinctly scent millions of cubic feet of air without any appreciable loss of weight, and its scent is not only more penetrating but more persistent than that of any other known substance. Its chemical constitution has not been specially investigated; but in addition to its odoriferous principle it contains ammonia, cholestrin, fatty matter, a bitter resinous substance and other animal principles. As a material in perfumery it is of the first importance, its powerful and enduring odour giving strength and permanency to the vegetable essences, so that it is a principal ingredient in nearly all compounded perfumes. Musk, or some substance possessed of the musk odour, is also contained in glands in the jaw of alligators and crocodiles, whence it has been extracted for use in perfumery in India and Egypt. The musk-ox and the musk-rat (Indian and European) are, as their names indicate, remarkable for a musk odour (see below). In the vegetable kingdom also a musky smell pervades the seeds of Abelmoschus moschatus, the entire plant Mimulus moschatus, and the sumbul root (Euryangium Sumbul).

Although, owing to variations of colour presented by different individuals in different localities and seasons, several nominal species have been described, zoologists are now generally agreed that there is but one, the Moschus moschiferus of Linnaeus. In size it is rather less than the European roe-deer, being about 20 inches high at the shoulder. Its limbs, especially the hinder ones, are long. The feet are remarkable for the great development of the lateral pair of hoofs, and for the freedom of motion they all present, so that they appear to have the power of grasping projecting rocky points,—a power which must be of great assistance to the animal in steadying it in its agile bounds among the crags of its native haunts. The ears are large, and the tail quite rudimentary. The hair covering the body is long, coarse, and of a peculiarly brittle and pith-like character, breaking with the application of an extremely slight force; it is generally of a greyish-brown colour, sometimes inclined to yellowish red, and often variegated with lighter patches. The Musk-deer has a wide distribution over the highlands of central and eastern Asia, including the greater part of southern Siberia, and extends to Kashmir on the south-west and Cochin-China on the southeast, always, however, at great elevations,—being rarely found in summer below 8000 feet above the sea-level, and ranging as high as the limits of the thickets of birch, rhododendron, and juniper, among which it mostly conceals itself in the day-time. It is a hardy, solitary, and retiring animal, chiefly nocturnal in its habits, and almost always found alone, rarely in pairs and never in herds. It is exceedingly active and surefooted, having perhaps no equal in traversing rocks and precipitous ground; and it feeds on moss, grass, and leaves of the plants which grow on the mountains among which it makes its home.

Most of the animals of the group to which the Musk-deer belongs, in fact the large majority of mammals, have some portion of the cutaneous surface peculiarly modified and provided with glands secreting some odorous and oleaginous substance specially characteristic of the species. This, correlated with the extraordinary development of the olfactory organs, appears to offer the principal means by which animals in a state of nature become aware of the presence of other individuals of their own species, or of those inimical to them, even at very great distances, and hence it is of extreme importance both to the wellbeing of the individual and to the continuance of the race. The situation of this specially modified portion of skin is extremely various, sometimes between the toes, as⅛n sheep, sometimes on the face in front of the eyes, as in many deer and antelopes. Sometimes it is in the form of a simple depression or shallow recess, often very deeply involuted, and in its most complete state of development it forms a distinct pouch or sac with a narrow tubular orifice. In this sac a considerable quantity of the secretion can accumulate until discharged by the action of a compressor muscle which surrounds it. This is the form taken by the special gland of the Musk-deer, which has made the animal so well known, and which has proved the cause of an unremitting persecution to its possessor. It is found in the male only, and is a sac about the size of a small orange, situated beneath the skin of the abdomen, the orifice being immediately in front of the preputial aperture. The secretion with which the sac is filled is of dark-brown or chocolate colour, and when fresh described as being of the consistence of “moist gingerbread,” but becoming dry and granular after keeping. It has a peculiar and very powerful scent, which when properly diluted and treated forms the basis of many of our most admired perfumes. When the animal is killed the whole gland or “pod” is cut out and dried, and in this form reaches the market of the Western world, chiefly through China.

For further details on the anatomy and zoology of Moschus see Pallas, Spicilegia Zoologica, xiii. (1779); A. Milne-Edwards, “Recherches Anatomiques, Zoologiques, et Palaeontologiques sur la Famille des Chevrotains,” in Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 5th ser., zool., ii. (1865); Brandt and Ratzeburg, Medizinische Zoologie, i. pp. 41-51 (1839); W. H. Flower, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1875, pp. 159-190; A. H. Garrod, ibid., 1877, pp. 287-292.

Welsh and Scotch cattle. The head is large and broad. The horns in the old males have extremely broad bases, meeting in the median line, and covering the brow and whole crown of the head. They are directed at first downwards by the side of the face and then turn upwards and forwards, ending in the same plane as the eye. Their basal halves are of a dull white colour, oval in section and coarsely fibrous; their middle part smooth, shining, and round; their tips black. In the females and young males the horns are smaller, and their bases are separated from each other by a space in the middle of the forehead. The ears are small, erect, and pointed, and nearly concealed in the hair. The space between the nostrils and the upper lip is covered with short close hair, as in sheep and goats, without any trace of the bare “muffle” of oxen. The greater part of the animal is covered with long brown hair, thick, matted, and curly on the shoulders, so as to give the appearance of a hump, but elsewhere straight and hanging down,—that of the sides, back, and haunches reaching as far as the middle of the legs and entirely concealing the very short tail. There is also a thick woolly under-fur, shed in the summer. The hair on the lower jaw, throat, and chest is long and straight, and hangs down like a beard or dewlap, though there is no loose fold of skin in this situation as in oxen. The limbs are stout and short, terminating in unsymmetrical hoofs, the external being rounded, the internal pointed, and the sole partially covered with hair.

The Musk-ox is at the present day confined to the most northern parts of North America, where it ranges over the rocky barren grounds between the 60th parallel and the shores of the Arctic Sea. Its southern range is gradually contracting, and it appears that it is no longer met with west of the Mackenzie river, though formerly abundant as far as Eschscholtz Bay. Northwards and eastwards it extends through the Parry Islands and Grinnell Land to north Greenland, reaching on the west coast as far south as Melville Bay; and it was also met with in abundance by the German polar expedition of 1869-1870 at Sabine Island on the east coast. No trace of it has been found in Spitzbergen or Franz Joseph Land. As proved by the discovery of fossil remains, it ranged during the Pleistocene period over northern Siberia and the plains of Germany and France, its bones occurring very generally in river deposits along with those of the reindeer, mammoth, and woolly rhinoceros. It has also been found in ordinary Pleistocene gravels in several parts of England, as Maidenhead, Bromley, Freshfield near Bath, Barnwood near Gloucester, and also in the lower brick earth of the Thames valley at Crayford, Kent.

It is gregarious in habit, assembling in herds of twenty or thirty head, or, according to Hearne, sometimes eighty or a hundred, in which there are seldom more than two or three full-grown males. They run with considerable speed, notwithstanding the shortness of their legs. Major H. W. Feilden, naturalist to the Arctic Expedition of 1875, says: “No person watching this animal in a state of nature could fail to see how essentially ovine are its actions. When alarmed they gather together like a flock of sheep herded by a collie dog, and the way in which they pack closely together and follow blindly the vacillating leadership of the old ram is unquestionably sheep-like. When thoroughly frightened they take to the hills, ascending precipitous slopes and scaling rocks with great agility.” They feed chiefly on grass, but also on moss, lichens, and tender shoots of the willow and pine. The female brings forth one young one in the end of May or beginning of June after a gestation of nine months. According to Sir J. Richardson, “when this animal is fat its flesh is well tasted, and resembles that of the caribou, but has a coarser grain. The flesh of the bulls is highly flavoured, and both bulls and cows when lean smell strongly of musk, their flesh at the same time being very dark and tough, and certainly far inferior to that of any other ruminating animal existing in North America.” The carcase of a Musk-ox weighs, exclusive of fat, above 3 cwt. On this subject Major Feilden says: “The cause of the disagreeable odour which frequently taints the flesh of these animals has received no elucidation from my observations. It does not appear to be confined to either sex, or to any particular season of the year; for a young unweaned animal, killed at its mother’s side and transferred witni v n an hour to the stew-pans, was as rank and objectionable as any. The flesh of some of these animals of which I have partaken was dark, tender, and as well flavoured as that of four-year old Southdown mutton” {Zoologist, September 1877).

See Richardson, Fauna Boreali-Americana (1829), and Zoology of H.M.S. Herald· (1882); W. Boyd Dawkins, "Ovibos moschatus,” in British Pleistocene Mammalia, part v.; Memoirs of the Palaeontographical Society (1872).

The Musk-rat is the only species of its genus and is peculiar to America, being extensively distributed in suitable localities in the northern part of the continent, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Rio Grande to the barren grounds bordering the Arctic Seas. It is aquatic in its habits, living on the shores of lakes and rivers, swimming and diving with great facility, feeding on the roots, stems, and leaves of water-plants, or on fruits and vegetables which grow near the margin of the streams it inhabits. Musk-rats are most active at night, spending the greater part of the day concealed in their burrows dug out of the bank, consisting of a chamber with numerous passages, all of which open under the surface of the water. For winter quarters they build more elaborate houses of conical or dome-like form, composed of sedges, grasses, and similar materials plastered together with mud. As their fur is an important article of commerce, large numbers are annually killed, being either trapped or speared at the mouths of their holes.

The name Musk-rat is applied in India to a large species of Shrew (Sorex caerulesccns or indiciis) which frequents houses at night, hunting round rooms for cockroaches and other insects, occasionally uttering a sharp shrill cry. The strong musky odour of the animal arises from large glands beneath the skin of the side of the body, a short distance behind the fore-limbs. This odour is so powerful and penetrating that it is popularly believed in India that if the animal runs over a corked bottle of wine or beer it will infect the fluid within. Jerdon says that certainly many bottles are met with quite undrinkable from the peculiar musky odour of their contents, but, rejecting the possibility of its passing through the glass, he attributes it to the corks having been infected previously to bottling, stating in corroboration of this view that he has never found the odourdn liquors bottled in England.