HISTORY OF THE [BOOK, i, 



These I think are their most general appellations; 

 but from the variety of Indian languages, or dialects 

 rather of the same language, which anciently pre- 

 vailed in the islands and on the neighbouring conti- 

 nent, some of these animals have been distinguished 

 by so many different names, that, in reading the ac- 

 counts of them transmitted by the French and Spanish 

 historians, it is often difficult to understand of which 

 in particular they mean to speak. 



The agouti is sometimes called couti, and coati. 

 It was corrupted into uti and utia, by the Spaniards; 

 and at present it is known in some parts of the West 

 Indies by the terms pucarara and Indian coney. It is 

 the mns aguti of Linnasus, and the cavy of Pennant 

 and Buffon. 



To these writers it is sufficient to refer, for a de- 

 scription of its nature and properties. I shall briefly 

 observe that, in comparing it with the quadrupeds of 

 Europe, it seems to constitute an intermediate spe- 

 cies between the rabbit and the rat; and of the ani- 

 mals which I have enumerated above, this and the 

 last are, I fear, the only ones that have escaped the 

 common fate of all the nobler inhabitants of these 

 unfortunate islands, man himself (as we have seen) 

 not excepted! The agouti is still frequently found in 

 Porto-Rico, Cuba and Hispaniola, and sometimes in 

 the mountains of Jamaica. In most of the islands to 

 windward, the race, though once common to them 

 all, is now I believe utterly extinct. 



