HUTIAS — TODIES 



425 





rant and primitive Insectivora reached their present isolated habitat is a mystery, 

 seeing that there are no members of the order in either Central or South America. 

 Hutias The roclents are represented in the West Indies by the hutias, 



which appear to be more or less intimately allied to the South 

 American coypu, but are more rat-like and mainly arboreal in their habits. 

 The hutia-couga (Capromys pilorides) represents the genus in Cuba, to which 

 island it is confined. It has a total length of about 22 inches, and is clothed with 



long coarse hair yellowish 

 grey and brown in colour. 

 Its smaller relative, the 

 hutia-carabali (C. prehen- 

 silis), is distinguished by 

 the tip of its tail being 

 prehensile. Living in the 

 tree-tops, it is much more 

 wary than the hutia-couga, 

 and defends itself just as 

 fiercely. Jamaica and the 

 Bahamas each possess a 

 separate species of these 

 rodents. Jamaica and 

 Hayti are likewise inhab- 

 ited oy the closely related 

 Plagiodon cedium, distin- 

 guished from the hutias by 

 the zigzag enamel folds of 

 the cheek-teeth. 



The todies are 

 characteristic West 

 Indian birds, entirely confined to 

 those islands ; the} 7 are diminutive 

 in size, with long, narrow and flat beaks, whose 

 edges are finely serrated. Todies feed on small 

 insects, which they capture in much the same way 

 as flycatchers, darting down on them as they pass 

 the bough on which the birds are perching. Todies 

 nest in tunnels made in the sides of ravines and high banks, and even in deeply 

 cut ditches. The green tody of Jamaica (Todus viridis) is perhaps the best 

 known species of the family Todidce, which contains only the one genus with 

 five species. 



In Martinique is found a curious tree-frog (Hylodes martini- 

 censis), already referred to in an earlier chapter on account of the 

 circumstance that within ten or twelve days the eggs, which are laid on the leaves 

 of plants near the coast, develop into the adult animal without the intervention of 

 a gill-bearing tadpole stage. The four legs appear simultaneously, and a short tail 

 is retained when the frog leaves the egg, although it soon withers. 



Todies. 



GREEN TODY. 



Tree-Frog'. 



