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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



are represented, bats, rodents and insectivores, the latter two by a single 

 species each. Covered as this island is with a luxuriant growth of subtropi- 

 cal vegetation, there are comparatively few exposures of the underlying 



rocks and those 

 showing are of igne- 

 ous or oceanic origin, 

 in which land animal 

 remains are not 

 found. 



A comprehensive 

 series of fossil ani- 

 mals, those forms 

 that had lived there 

 prior to the advent 

 of man, would serve 

 to determine the 

 early history of this 

 isl and . It was there- 

 fore of great interest 

 when the discovery 

 of a fossil sloth jaw 

 was announced in 

 1860. In 1868 Dr. 

 Joseph Leidy named 

 this creature Mega- 

 locnus rodens and 

 determined it to be 

 related to the South 

 American Pleisto- 

 cene animal Mega- 

 therium. The au- 

 thenticity of its origin in Cuba has been questioned however by some 

 geologists until lately. Additional light was thrown on the former animal 

 life of this island when that enthusiastic Cuban naturalist, Dr. Carlos de la 

 Torre, presented a paper before the International Geological Congress in 

 Stockholm in 1910 and exhibited many fossils collected by him in northern 

 Cuba. 



In response to a request from Dr. La Torre I went to Cuba in 1911 to aid 

 him in further search for fossil remains. In company with Dr. La Torre 

 and his assistant, Mr. Victor Rodriguez, I left Havana one morning in June 

 destined for the little town of Caibarien on the north shore, to reach which 

 we traveled a day through sugar plantations, groves of royal palms and rural 

 scenes so interesting one is loath to dismiss them with the term picturesque. 



Entrance to the cave of Jatibonico. The black line above 

 the entrance is not a crack but the covered passage of termites, 

 a species of white ant which cannot stand strong light 



Throughout Cuba, caves and Assures are of frequent occur- 

 rence, leached out of the limestone rocks by the chemical action 

 of water 



