Mr. W. S. MacLeay's Notes on Capromys. 277 



are large a'nd prominent. Its habits nocturnal, and movements slow. It 

 is exceedingly impatient of confinement, and as the only specimen I have 

 been able to keep alive is waxing thinner and thinner every day, I fear 

 much it will never arrive alive in England. With me it will eat nothing 

 but orange leaves, the bark of the young shoots of the Mango, and the 

 fruits of this last tree, which appear to be its favorite food. 



I will not describe these several species, knowing how much better it 

 will be done by you, when you get the animals alive. My object at pre- 

 sent is merely to point out some passages respecting these animals in an 

 author to whom you may not find it very convenient to refer, from his 

 work being now so rare. 



There is in Cuba, I believe, a fourth species of Capromys, interme- 

 diate in size between the Hutm and Quemi, but of a more reddish grey, 

 and very like a rabbit. Browne also, in his History of Jamaica, seems 

 to describe a fifth species as a native of that island. His description is 

 as follows : — " Mus Major fusco-cinerescens caudd truncatd. (The 

 " small Indian Coney). It is a native of Jamaica,* and smaller than 

 " either of these two (the Quemi and Mohuy), differs but little from 

 " them in form or method of living ; except the tail, which is short and 

 " stumped, being seldom above two inches and a half in length." 



All the species of Capromys have a strong smell, particularly the Hu- 

 tia and Mohuy, and therefore I am still a little inclined to think, on com- 

 paring the Histoire Generale des Antilles by the Pere Dutertre and Roche- 

 fort's Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Antilles, that the Pilori or Musk 

 Rat, of the early French writers, was also another species of Capromys 

 probably now extinct in the Caribee Islands. The Castor caudd lineari 

 tereti of Browne's Jamaica, which Gmelin makes the same as the Mus 

 Pilorides of Pallas was, according to Browne, an aquatic animal, and 

 therefore could not be a Capromys. It is very possible, however, that 

 Brisson's habitat for the Mus Pilorides may have been wrong, and that 

 his animal vras in fact a Capromys. However, as this circumstance must 



* That Hutlas were at all events at one time to be found in Jamaica, is proved 

 by Columbus having victualled the famous canoe expedition of Diego Mendez 

 with them. (See Washington Irving's Life of Columbus.) 



