102 THE NAUTILUS. 



studied that rare insectivorous mammal, which from its channeled 

 teeth, is called Solenodon (S. cabanvs Peters). There is a related 

 species 1 in Santo Domingo, but nowhere else, I believe, except in 

 Madagascar, is there an animal, the Centetes, at all like it. The 

 Hutia, a large rodent, which in war times was hunted for food, is 

 represented by three species, 2 but one of these, as well as the Soleno- 

 don, belongs to the fauna of Eastern Cuba. 



At the University of Havana nothing is more touching than the 

 regard in which Felipe Poey is held. His statue, a magnificent 

 work of art, is the chief memorial in the quadrangle, and his library 

 with many interesting relics, and many of his types have their 

 repository in the spacious Museum. The present University, by the 

 way, represents only one of the many far-seeing services rendered 

 the Cuban people, during the American intervention, by Gen. 

 Leonard Wood. He converted the old ordnance factories into 

 University buildings which now fittingly crown the Vedado. 



At the time of my visit the Professor's assistants were mounting a 

 recently captured ray {Lcbisa), a fish well known by name only to 

 Poey and mentioned in his several works, but which has never been 

 described. 3 This curious inhabitant of the Caribbean Sea is from 

 one to two meters in diameter, having a rough spiny skin which has 

 been used by the natives as a dish rag. It has a long, slender, 

 sharply-pointed tail, near the base of which are erected two obliquely- 

 set and forbidding spines, which look much like the stoutly grown 

 thorns of a healthy locust tree. 



For one who is interested in botany the notes of A. Richards in 

 Ramon de la Sagra's " Historia Fisica Politico y Natural de Cuba," 

 will be found instructive, and other works, such as the "Flora 

 C/ibana," of Sauvalle, the il Flora Havanensis" of Gomez de la 

 Maza, and the "Flora of the British West Indian Islands" of Grise- 

 bach, have an honorable place among the older authorities.* 



1 Solenodon paradoxus Brandt. 



*Capromys fournicri, Desmarest ; C. prehensilis, Poeppig ; and C. melanurus, 

 Poey. 



8 The description will appear in Poey's " htiologia Cubana," which Dr. de la 

 Torre is now editing for publication. 



4 This painstaking catalogue lias the advantage of being written in English. 

 Its author, A. H. R. Grisebach, M. D., was Professor of Botany in tbe Uni- 

 versity of Gottingen, and the first edition was published in London in 1864. 



