ALLEN: MAMMALS OF THE WEST INDIES. 205 



of the interior. Here it has become excessively scarce of late years, 

 due, as some think, to the mongoose killing the young. None of the 

 native hunters with whom I spoke in Grenada seemed to think it 

 possible to procure specimens. Mr. Austin H. ('lark tells me that 

 the agouti has been introduced into the southeastern end of Bequia, 

 where, however, it has not thriven, possibly for lack of sufficient 

 water. It is not found on the other Grenadines. On St. Vincent it 

 still occurs, among the wooded highlands; and Mr. Clark obtained 

 a specimen here in 1904, and writes that, although largely nocturnal, 

 it may sometimes be 3een in the daytime tearing to pieces rotten 

 stumps and fallen trees, apparently for the insect larvae inhabiting 

 them. Farther north, it is well known to occur on Sta. Lucia, whence 

 the Museum possesses specimens taken some thirty years ago by 

 Mr. John Semper. Probably it once lived in most or all of the larger 

 islands to the northward; for Du Tertre, in 1654, includes it as a well 

 known species among the French isles. He mentions no particular 

 island as its habitat; but since his title is a "Histoire Generate des 

 Isles de S. Christophe, de la Guadelovpe, de la Martinique/' etc., it 

 may be assumed that it was found on them. The eruptions of Mar- 

 tinique may have contributed to exterminate it there. At all events 

 I have not found it definitely recorded from that island. Labat, 

 writing in 1742 (3, p. 23) of the Antilles, voices his belief that it is 

 found in all the islands. He acknowledges that he did not find it 

 on Martinique, for which perhaps the snakes may have been responsi- 

 ble, but he knew it to be common on Guadeloupe, Dominica, and St. 

 Kitts. Chapman (1897, p. 29) records a specimen taken in Dominica, 

 where it was said to be still common in the interior of the island, 

 There is a specimen in the collection of the U. S. National Museum 

 from the island of Montserrat, received in 1902. In the catalogue 

 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology are recorded two skins of 

 the agouti from St. Kitts (or St. Christopher) received in 1881 from 

 F. Lagois, but they are not now to be found. A specimen from this 

 island was lent to me, however, by the U. S. National Museum. The 

 British MuseUm has specimens also from St. Thomas (Alston, P. Z. S., 

 1876, p. 348). The possibility of its having been introduced into 

 these more northern islands is of course not to be overlooked, but there 

 is no evidence of it. Du Tertre (1654) states that among the French 

 Isles they are much hunted for their flesh, with dogs trained to run 

 them. They usually seek shelter in a hollow tree, whence the hunters 

 smoke them out. He says further that the female brings forth two 

 young at a birth, in a nest made on the ground under a bush. The 



