THE CUBA REVIEW 



AND BULLETIN 



"ALL ABOUT CUBA" 



LIBIMRK 

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Copyright, 1907, by the Munson Steamship Line. ^^TAMf ^1 



GARDEN 



Volume V. 



AUGUST, 1907. 



Number 9. 



WILD LIFE OF CUBA. 





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Mammals not Numerous — Virginia Deer Common — Cuba Well Favored with Birdsj 

 Having some 280 Species — One Thousand Species of Butterflies and Moths. 



BY B. S. BOWDISH. 



Special Inspector of Wild Birds imported by dealers, for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, and 

 Chief Clerk of the National Association of Audubon Society. 



The wild life of Cuba, while not at all what it may have been pictured in the 

 imaginations of those who have never visited the West Indies, is nevertheless 

 intensely interesting. 



Mammals, it must be confessed, are not very numerous, either as to species or 

 individuals. Aside from some twenty-five or thirty species of bats there are only 

 about eight varieties. The common rat and the roof rat, the latter often building 

 nests in the trees or bushes, are common. The roof rat is about the size of the 

 other but has much finer hair and is more attractive in appearance. The common 

 house mouse of the states also occurs in Cuba. Three species of the genus capromys, 

 called by the natives "hutia," are found, the "hutia conga," "hutia de hoyo" and 

 "hutia carabali." They are more like the opossums in appearance than like any 

 other of our animals, and partake of the habits of both those creatures and rats. 

 They are largely arboreal in habits and are rodents. Another creature of somewhat 

 similar nature, the solenodon cubanus,* called by the natives "almiqui" at Bayamo 

 and "tamache" at Cienfuegos and Tejon is a rare and little known animal. To 

 Gundlach, the German naturalist who contributed so much to the knowledge of 

 Cuban natural history, we owe much of what we know of this creature. He found 

 it in the mountains between Cienfuegos and Trinidad, in the estate Buenos-Ayers, 

 Naranjos and Cimarrones (where it is very rare, none having been seen there in 

 late years), Bayamo, Sierra Maestra south of Bayamo, mountain near Sagua de 

 Tanamo and Mayari. He writes that he met with evident signs of the existence 

 of the animal in places where it had been scratching in the soil in search of food 

 (worms and insects) and also saw holes made by the animal in which it lives 

 during the daytime. Few naturalists have met with it and specimens are not 

 abundant in collections. 



The Virginia deer has been introduced and is quite common in some sections. 



In the matter of birds Cuba is well favored. Something like 280 species have 

 been found, of which number 196 are identical with birds of the United States, 

 while many of the others differ but little from allied forms in our avi-fauna, or 

 represent in Cuba genera to which some of our birds belong. Cuba lies more in 

 line with the trend of migration of birds between their northern summer homes 

 and southern winter ones than any other of the Greater Antilles, and also being 

 the largest it naturally gets a great number of our migrants. 



Two grebes or hell-divers are found in Cuba, our pied-billed grebe or dab- 

 chick and the Dominican grebe. The former, being the larger, is called "zamagullon 

 grande" by the natives, while they give the name of "zamagullon chico" to the 

 latter. There are records of three species of gulls, the herring, ring-billed, and 

 laughing or black-headed, all birds of the States. Nine of our terns occur in Cuba; 

 also the black skimmer, Wilson's petrel, Audubon's shearwater, red-billed tropic 



See illustration on page 9. 



