THE UTIA. 469 



the Caribbean chain, and reputed to be indigenous to 

 the larger islands. Thus Bryan Edwards, enumerating 

 the quadrupeds of the West Indies, mentions the 

 Agouti, the Peccary, the Armadillo, the Opossum, 

 the Racoon, the Musk-rat, the Alco, and the Monkey.* 

 Of these he concludes the first and the last to be the 

 only indigenous animals now surviving in the larger 

 islands, and thus alludes to the first. " The Agouti 

 is sometimes called couti and coati; it was corrupted 

 into idi and idia, by the Spaniards ; and at present 

 is known in some parts of the West Indies by the 

 terms ptwarara and Indimi Cony. It is the Mus agouti 

 of Linnaeus, and the Cavy of Pennant and Buffon." 

 (Hist. W. Ind. i. 90.) 



A few years ago M. Fournier brought to Europe 

 specimens of the animal which still bears in Cuba 

 the name of Utia. It was found to be new to 

 naturalists, and a genus was constituted for its re- 

 ception under the appellation of Capromys, which 

 Mr. Waterhouse arranges in the great Porcupine 

 family. Two other species were afterwards added, 

 all three being inhabitants of Cuba ; and a fourth 

 representing them in Haiti, but, on account of some 

 difference in the dentition, erected into a genus by 

 itself, and called Plagiodojitia csdiiim. To these we 

 have now the pleasure of adding a fifth, the Utia of 

 Jamaica, which we shall see to belong to the Cuban 

 genus Capromys. 



The Indian Cony is quite unknown in those 



* There is no reason to believe that any quadrumanous anima' 

 was indigenous to the greater Antilles. 



