III.] SUB-REGIONS. 137 



while the carpincho, as already mentioned, only borders on it in 

 Uruguay. Among the characteristic types are prominent the 

 vicunas of the Andes, the guanacos of the Argentine pampas and 

 Patagonia, the spectacled bear of the Andes, the chinchillas of the 

 same elevated regions, together with the aquatic coypu (Myopo- 

 tamus}, the burrowing viscacha, and the cursorial Patagonian 

 cavy ; all the three latter being plain-dwelling forms. Armadillos 

 are abundant; and among these the sub-family represented by the 

 beautiful little pichiciagos, or fairy-armadillos (Chlamydophorus) 

 is peculiar, one of the two species inhabiting open plains near 

 Mendoza, in the Argentine, while the second (regarded by some 

 as a distinct genus) is found in the Bolivian highlands. 



The Antillean, or West Indian sub-region, which comprises the 

 West Indian Islands (exclusive of Trinidad, Tobago, and some of 

 the adjacent islets, which are zoologically a part of continental 

 South America), differs widely from the other three by the extreme 

 poverty of its mammalian fauna; monkeys, marmosets, carnivores, 

 and edentates being wanting, and the class mainly represented by 

 bats, insectivores, and rodents, although a species of aguti (Dasy- 

 procta antilliensis) is found in the islands of St Vincent and Santa 

 Lucia, in the Lesser Antilles group, as also in Tobago. In 

 addition to a single species of white-footed mouse (Sitomys) said to 

 inhabit Hayti and Martinique, and which may also occur in some 

 of the other islands, the West Indian sub-region is especially 

 characterised by the large arboreal rodents known as hutias, which, 

 while belonging to the family Octodontidce, represent two genera 

 totally unknown elsewhere. Of these, the genus Plagiodon has 

 but a single species, confined to Hayti and Jamaica; although in 

 the allied Capromys three existing species are found in Cuba, and 

 the fourth in Jamaica, the extinct kind occurring in the former 

 island 1 . The nearest relative of the hutias appears to be the 

 South American coypu, but the group seems also to show affini- 

 ties with the porcupines. From caves in the small island of 

 Anguilla, at the northern extremity of the Lesser Antilles group 

 have been obtained remains of a large extinct beaver-like rodent 

 known as Amblyrhiza (Loxomylus), which has also been recorded 



1 Chapman, Bull. Amer. Mus. Vol. IV. p. 314 (1892). 



