NO. 9 MAMMALS FROM CAVES IN HAITI MILLER 3 



INSECTIVORA 



Insectivures of the ;^eiuis Ah\s'of^h()ntes are al)iin(lantly represented 

 in the Haitian caves. They have not previously been recorded from 

 the island of Hispaniola. In the superficial layer of the cave floors 

 the bones of these animals occur in undisturbed material along with 

 remains of Epimys raftiis and Miis iiiiisciiliis. This association is so 

 intimate that there appears to be no reason to doubt the simultaneous 

 occurrence of the insectivores and the introduced rodents. Some of 

 the jaws of A'esophoiifcs are more fresh in appearance than some of 

 the jaws of Rattus near which they were found. Whether or not 

 Nesophontcs now exists alive is a question which for the present 

 cannot be answered. No bones of insectivores have been found in 

 any of the numerous fresh owl pellets which I have examined. It 

 seems not improbable, however, that if any part of the island remains 

 uninvaded by the roof rat, the iiative animal might now be found 

 to exist there. 



It is a noteworthy fact that up to the present time no remains 

 of Solenodon have been found in an\ of the caves. This animal is so 

 much larger than Nesophontcs that its absence from deposits which 

 are mostly owl -made might at first be thought to be due to this 

 circumstance. Its size, however, is no greater than that of several 

 of the rodents which were freely eaten by the extinct giant barn owl, 

 of whose refuse the bone deposits chiefly consist. While it is there- 

 fore impossible to suggest any reasonable explanation of the absence 

 of Solerwdon bones, the fact of this absence is an important one 

 because of its bearing on the question of the completeness of the 

 faunal record preserved in the caves. 



NESOPHONTES PARAMICRUS sp. nov. 



Plate I, fig. I 



Type. — Skull, lacking ])ostero-inferior portion of occiput; the fol- 

 lowing teeth in place: piir, piii*. in^ and vr of right side, m^ and nr 

 of left side. No. 253063, U. S. Nat. Mus. Collected at front of 

 large cave near St. Michel, Haiti, March, 1925, by Gerrit S. Miller, Jr. 



Diagnosis. — Size and general characters of skull and teeth as in 

 the Cuban Ncsophontes inicnis G. M. Allen. Upper molars without 

 the well-defined sulcus which, in A^ inicnis, lies between the base of 

 metacone and posterior commissure of protocone ; lower molars with 

 metaconid and entoconid obviously less nearly terete than in the 

 Cuban animal. 



