MAMMALS FROM THE COAST AND ISLANDS OF 

 NORTHERN SOUTH AMERICA. 



BY WILFRED H. OSGOOD. 



While collecting birds for the Field Museum during 1908 and 

 1909, Dr. N. Dearborn and the late Mr. John F. Ferry secured a few 

 specimens of mammals in northern Venezuela and on several of the 

 nearby islands. Most of these are such as chanced to fall to their 

 guns, since they carried no traps and made no special effort to obtain 

 a representative collection of mammals. The collection, therefore, 

 is a small one, but so little mammal collecting has been done in this 

 region that many of the specimens are of considerable interest and 

 several prove to belong to undescribed forms. The principal localities 

 represented are in the districts of Aragua and Zulia, Venezuela, and 

 on the islands of Aruba, Curacao, Testigos, and Margarita. 



In reporting on the specimens collected by Messrs. Dearborn and 

 Ferry, it has seemed desirable to include descriptions of two new species 

 from other sources, but from the same general region. One of these 

 is a squirrel from Tobago acquired by the Museum with the Cory 

 collection of birds and the other is a deer from Margarita Island, pre- 

 sented by Mr. C. Freeman of Puerto Viejo. 



Didelphis marsupialis Linnaeus. 



One specimen, Lake Valencia, Venezuela; collected by N. Dear- 

 born. This is in very pale, somewhat worn pelage, chiefly whitish, 

 but agrees with specimens in similar condition from Guiana repre- 

 senting typical marsupialis. 



Tamandua tetradactyla instabilis Allen. 



One specimen, Orope, Zulia, Venezuela; collected by N. Dear- 

 born. This is too young to show any subspecific characters, but it 

 seems reasonable to refer it to the Colombian form instabilis rather 

 than to typical tetradactyla of Brazil. If it were assumed, as has been 

 done,* that Guiana is the type locality of tetradactyla, it might be 

 safer on geographic grounds to refer our specimen to that form. 



* Allen, The Tamandua Anteaters, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., N. Y., XX, p. 391, Oct. 1904. 



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