NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 



11 



Following its rediscovery by Verrill in 1907, five living 

 animals were sent to the zoological gardens at Washington and 

 New York from the Dominican Republic, and others including 

 four living adults were received by the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology at Cambridge. The last came from a locality in the 

 interior of the northeastern part of Hispaniola known as La 

 Vega. Since that time a German collector, Paul Thumb, by 

 the aid of a well-trained dog, succeeded in 1935 and 1936 in 

 securing a number, about 20 in all, which he shipped alive to 

 the zoological garden at Hamburg, Germany. Of these, 

 several survived the voyage and formed the subject of three 

 short papers by Dr. Erna Mohr (1936-37) concerning their 

 ways in captivity, with a number of photographic illustrations. 

 Herr Thumb secured his solenodons mainly in rocky and 

 wooded country in the vicinity of San Jose de las Matas. In 

 life the solenodon is a rather slow-moving creature, constantly 

 on the move with a shuffling gait, sniffing everywhere with its 

 long nose, and scraping and scratching here and there with its 

 long claws, exploring for food. It is capable of delivering a 

 sharp bite if too much disturbed, however. 



According to Dr. Mohr (1937 A), Herr Thumb found soleno- 

 dons in dens among broken rock for the most part, or occa- 

 sionally in hollow logs. In the former case the depth varied 

 according to conditions of the rocks. The holes he dug out in 

 1935 were packed with the empty shells of a snail, but this was 

 not the case with those examined in the next year; while at the 



Hispaniolan solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus) 



