ALLEN: MAMMALS OF THE WEST INDIES. 215 



Plee in Martinique. Major (1901) notes that a specimen from the 

 same place, collected also by Plee, is in the Leyden Museum. No 

 recent examples appear to have been collected, and it is not unlikely 

 that it has been entirely exterminated by the rats and human enemies. 



Megalomys luciae (Major). 



Oryzomys luciae Major, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 1901, ser. 7, 7, p. 206. 

 The Santa Lucia muskrat has been recently described as a peculiar 

 island form. It differs conspicuously from that of Martinique in 

 having the belly wholly brown instead of white. The type is a speci- 

 men in the British Museum, taken some sixty years ago. 



Megalomys "majori" Trouessart. 



Megalomys majori Trouessart, Catalogus Mammalium, fasc. 2, 

 Rodentia, 1904, p. 415 (nomen nudum). 



In his description of the Santa Lucia muskrat, Forsyth Major 

 (1901, p. 206) briefly refers to a fragment of this rat, consisting of the 

 lower teeth, found in a fossil state in a small ossiferous breccia in the 

 island of Barbuda. This he considers to represent an extinct species 

 but does not discuss it further. Trouessart, in the last issue of his 

 'Catalogus Mammalium,' proposes the name majori for this animal, 

 but gives no description, and erroneously quotes the locality as Bar- 

 bados. The name is therefore a nomen nudum, and the characters 

 of the supposed species are still unknown. 



Mus muscultjs Linne. 



Mus musculus Linne, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 1758, 1, p. 62. 



The house mouse, although generally distributed among the Antilles, 

 appears to be less abundant than the rats. Chapman did not obtain 

 it among the mammals trapped on Dominica. Du Tertre (writing 

 in 1654) notes its introduction into the French islands, but says that 

 it was not very common, and it apparently increased far less rapidly 

 than the black rat. The Museum has specimens from Grenada, 

 St. Kitts, and Haiti. Feilden (1890) testifies to its abundance on 

 Barbados, and notices that the specimens taken there seem redder than 

 usual. 



