NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 115 



much longer than in the latter animal, extending as long finger- 

 like folds nearly to the enamel wall of the opposite side of the 

 tooth instead of about to the center of the tooth. The audit al 

 bullae, however, were large, as in typical G. ingrahami, ex- 

 tending well below the level of the basioccipital. The lower 

 tooth row attained a maximum length of up to 17.5 mm. 

 (alveoli); upper tooth row, 16.5; humerus, 50; femur, 67; tibia, 

 64. Remains of this form are known from four of the central 

 islands of the Bahama group: Crooked Island, Eleuthera, Long 

 Island, and Exuma. Those from the first three islands men- 

 tioned were in more or less close association with aboriginal 

 sites in caves and hence may have been contemporaneous 

 with early Indian occupation. Those from Exuma Island, 

 however, though undoubtedly of the same form, may have 

 been earlier, for the deposit in which they occurred abundantly 

 (see G. M. Allen, 1937) showed no sign of human influence, 

 and furthermore contained remains of three genera of extinct 

 hawks and owls. To what extent the aborigines may have 

 utilized these animals as food, or transported them from one 

 island to another, is not now possible to make out. 



The Abaco hutia, described' from palates and other cranial 

 fragments, was closely similar to that on the Crooked Island 

 group, but with the anterior lower premolar "slightly more 

 tapering anteriorly with the anterior lobe somewhat smaller 

 and more slender" and with longer frontal bones, which ended 

 in a pointed projection "reaching anteriorly between the nasals 

 and the premaxillaries." The postorbital processes in available 

 specimens are more reduced than in the two other forms of the 

 species. 



Nothing further is known about these Bahaman hutias. 

 Possibly they were still living in Catesby's day, but the species 

 he figures as a Bahaman cony, about 1750, appears to be a 

 Cuban Capromys. Their extinction can not be wholly due to 

 the extinct eagle and giant barn owl, which must have preyed 

 upon them, but more likely was a result of clearing and burning 

 the cover during the earlier centuries of white occupation, of 

 which unfortunately there is practically no record. 



HEXOLOBODON PHENAX Miller 

 Hexolobodon phenax Miller, Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 81, no. 9, p. 19, Mar. 30, 



1929 ("Small cave near St. Michel," central plain of Haiti). 

 FIGS.: Miller, 1929a, pi. 3, figs. 1, la, Ib (palate and jaw). 



