8o 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



light, and flits up and down the coast rivers with screams that can 

 be heard as plainly as the screech of a paroquet. The Vespertilio 

 scandens of eastern San Domingo has a peculiar habit of flitting from 

 tree to tree, and clambering about in quest of insects, almost with 

 the agility of a flying squirrel. There are times when the moonlit 

 woods near Cape Rafael seem to be all alive with the restless little 

 creatures; that keep up a clicking chirp, and every now and then 

 gather in swarms to contest a tempting find, or to settle some probate 

 court litigation. San Domingo also harbors one species of those pro- 

 totypes of the harpies, the fruit-eating bats. It passes the daylight 

 hours in hollow trees, but becomes nervous toward sunset and apt 

 to betray its hiding place by an impatient twitter — probably a col- 

 locution of angry comments on the length of time between meals. 

 The moment the twilight deepens into gloom the chatterers flop out 

 to fall on the next mango orchard and eat away like mortgage brokers. 

 They do not get fat — champion gluttons rarely do — but attain a 

 weight of six ounces, and the Haytian darkey would get even with 

 them after a manner of their own if their prerogatives were not 

 protected by the intensity of their musky odor. The above- mentioned 

 hutia rat appears to have immigrated from some part of the world 

 where the shortness of the summer justified the accumulation of large 

 reserve stores of food, and under the influence of a hereditary hoard- 

 ing instinct it now passes its existence constructing and filling a series 

 of subterranean granaries. Besides, the females build nurseries, and 

 all these burrows are connected by tunnels that enable their con- 

 structors to pass the rainy season under shelter. They gather nnts, 

 belotas (a sort of sweet acorns), and all kinds of cereals, and with their 

 penchant for appropriating roundish wooden objects on general prin- 

 ciples would probably give a Connecticut nutmeg peddler the benefit 

 of the doubt. 



They also pilfer raisins, and a colony of such tithe collectors is a 

 formidable nuisance, for the hutia is a giant of its tribe, and attains a 

 length of sixteen inches, exclusive of the tail. It is found in Cuba, 

 Hayti, Jamaica, Porto Rico, Antigua, Trinidad, the Isle of Pines, 

 Martinique, and two or three of the southern Bahama Islands, and 

 there may have been a time when it had the archipelago all to itself. 

 The Lucayans had a tradition that their ancestors found it on their 

 arrival from the mainland, and in some coast regions of eastern Cuba 

 it may still be seen basking in the sunlight — 



" Sole sitting on the shore of old romance," 



and wondering if there are any larger mammals on this planet. 



Its next West Indian congener is the Jamaica rice rat, and there 

 are at least ten species of mice, all clearly distinct from any Old- World 



