106 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



300 mandibles and 60 cranial fragments from caves at Daiquiri, 

 on the eastern tip of Cuba, indicating that in former times it 

 inhabited suitable areas in the length and breadth of the island 

 and probably was regularly preyed upon by barn owls, which 

 had brought these remains into the caverns where the birds 

 rested by day. None of these fragments appeared to be "at all 

 recent and since this mammal formed such a large part of the 

 owl diet in times gone by, it would almost certainly appear in 

 recent owl pellets" were it still living in eastern Cuba. In the 

 meantime, through the efforts of Dr. Thomas Barbour, living 

 specimens had been secured in 1917 and sent to the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology by Don Jose Garcia. These were ob- 

 tained in the great Zapata Swamp, on the southern coast of 

 west-central Cuba, an area that is ordinarily nearly impene- 

 trable but can be entered at times of unusual drought. So 

 far as known, no other examples have since been obtained, 

 until November 1937, when Dr. Hans Boker collected a live 

 pair in the same swamp, south of the town of Jaguey. As pre- 

 viously stated by Senor Garcia, these had been found living 

 on small, dry, bush-covered islands in the swamp, where they 

 are probably at most times fairly well protected against invad- 

 ing mongooses or other enemies. Senor Garcia told Dr. 

 Barbour that the dwarf hutias are sometimes routed out when 

 the sawgrass of these marshes is burned. Morrison -Scott 

 (1939) records that the pair secured by Dr. Boker were 

 brought alive to the Berlin zoo, where on December 1, 1937, 

 the female gave birth to a single young one, but it as well as 

 its mother died within the next two weeks. These two are 

 now preserved in the British Museum, while the adult male, 

 which survived until the following February, is now in the 

 Berlin Museum. The dentition of the young one, which 

 Morrison-Scott figures, already consisted of a premolar and 

 the first molar. 



While it seems likely that the species may survive for a 

 good many years in the Zapata refuge, it must elsewhere in 

 Cuba have succumbed before the introduced mongoose and 

 probably the roof rats. 



