HISTORY OF THE , [BOOR i. 



matical writers the nine banded. It is covered with a 

 jointed shell, or scaly armour, and has the faculty of 

 rolling itself up, like the hedge-hog. As food it is 

 said to be very wholesome and delicate. It was once 

 found in all parts of the West Indies. 



The opossum (or manitou] is distinguishable from 

 all other animals, by a wonderful property. Under 

 the belly of the female there is a pouch, wherein she 

 receives and shelters her young. || Both this and the 

 former animal are too well known to the curious in 

 natural researches, to render it necessary for me to 

 be more particular. I believe the opossum, like the 

 pecary, was unknown to the larger islands. 



The racoon was common in Jamaica in the time of 

 Sloane, who observes that it was eaten by all sorts of 

 people. Its abode was chiefly in hollow trees, from 

 whence, says Sloane, it makes paths to the cane- 

 fields, where it chiefly subsists; a circumstance which, 

 while it indicates that its number was considerable, 

 easily accounts for its destruction. 



The musk-rat is the piloris of naturalists : it bur- 

 rows in the earth, and smells so strongly of musk, 

 that its retreat is easily discovered. According to the 

 French writers^ these abounded anciently in Marti- 

 nico and the other Windward islands to a great de- 

 gree;* and its resemblance to the common rat of 



o * 



\\ I have since learnt that the female Kangaroo from New Holland. is 

 provided in the same manner. 



* Pe Labat, torn, ii, p, 302, 



