NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 121 



tion on the former it was indigenous there and that "it is un- 

 likely that its primitive range included both Santo Domingo 

 and Porto Rico because no differentiation between specimens 

 from the two places is seen." The fact that its bones may here 

 be found near or at the surface in some deposits is evidence for 

 his further belief that it was the last native mammal to become 

 extinct on Puerto Rico. This must have been soon after the 

 discovery by whites. 



If we assume that the Indians used this as a staple food 

 animal, the implication of its presence on these three different 

 island habitats is that they kept it in a state of semidomestica- 

 tion and perhaps bred it in captivity for food. This they 

 apparently did with the guineapig (the cori), remains of which 

 also occur in shell heaps in the Dominican Republic and Cuba. 

 Possibly, too, this was a particularly docile and tractable 

 species, as some of the hystricomorphs are known to be. 



HAITIAN ISOLOBODON 



ISOLOBODON LEVIR (Miller) 



Ithydontia levir Miller, Smithsonian MisA Coll., vol. 74, no. 3, p. 5, Oct. 16, 1922 

 (Cave "northeast of St. Michel de 1'Atalaye, northwest end of the central plain of 

 Haiti"). 



Isolobodon levir Miller, Smithsonian Misc, Coll., vol. 81, no. 9, p. 14, Mar. 30, 1929. 



FIGS.: Miller, 1929a, pi. 2, figs. 3, 3a. 



Originally based on a single molar tooth from cave deposits 

 in Haiti, further excavations in the same region disclosed that 

 this species was after all an Isolobodon and that the original 

 tooth was an upper premolar and not a lower molar as was at 

 first supposed. 



From the abundant remains secured in the later work in the 

 St. Michel area, which lies at the northwest end of the central 

 plain of Haiti, Miller (1929a) was able to show that this is the 

 most abundantly represented of the vertebrates found in the 

 bone-bearing deposits. The fragments of palates and jaws 

 are constantly smaller than are those of the Puerto Rican 

 isolobodon, the eight largest among 600 mandibles having 

 tooth rows 16.2-17.2 mm. in length, while in the latter animal 

 the range is from 17.6 to 19.2 mm. Such other measurements 

 as can be obtained from crania of the Haitian animal confirm 

 its slightly smaller size. 



The evidence now available, as Miller brings out (1929a, 



