No. 4. — Fossil Mammals from Cuba. 

 By Glover M. Allen. 



Since the publication in January, 1917, of my paper on new fossil 

 mammals from Cuba (Bull. M. C. Z., 61, p. 1-12, pi.), the Museum 

 has received a large quantity of subfossil bones from several localities 

 in that island and the Isle of Pines, which so very materially supple- 

 ment the few fragments on which the original descriptions were based, 

 that it seems desirable to make an additional report on' them. The 

 material was collected by Dr. Thomas Barbour, assisted by Messrs. 

 W. Sprague Brooks and Goodwin Warner, from caves in the Sierra 

 de Hato Nuevo, and near Limones, Cuba, as well as from two caves in 

 Sierra de Casas, Isle of Pines. Practically all of the specimens were 

 found loose or only slightly compacted together in the soil-deposit of 

 the caves, hence they are in much better preservation than the frag- 

 ments originally studied, which had to be carefully- chiselled out from 

 a solidified mass. All are of recent origin, some so fresh in appear- 

 ance that it is hard to believe they have been long in the ground. 

 With the exception of a few skulls fairly well preserved, much of the 

 material is more or less broken and scattered, as though the animals 

 had been torn apart and eaten by owls or land-crabs. In addition to 

 the three species first announced, a new dwarf Capromys was dis- 

 covered, which has lately been described (.Allen, 1917a) on the basis 

 of several lower jaw-fragments, as C. nana. Most opportunely a 

 living specimen of this supposedly extinct animal has now been re- 

 ceived at the Museum through Dr. Barbour's efforts, so that a com- 

 plete description of this interesting addition to the present-day fauna 

 of Cuba is made possible. 



In addition, I am under obligation to Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., for 

 the privilege of making a cursory examination of the collection of 

 subfossil bones brought from Cuba by Mr. William Palmer early in 

 1917, and now in the U. S. National Museum; also to Mr. H. E. 

 Anthony of the American Museum of Natural History, for the oppor- 

 tunity of studying similar specimens collected by him in eastern Cuba. 

 A brief report by Peterson (1917) has since appeared on cave-fossils 

 from the Isle of Pines found in 1913 by the Messrs. Link. Curiously, 

 no additional species have been recognized among the large number 

 of fragments now obtained. 



