2 PEOCEEDINGS OP THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 72 



ethnological collections of the National Museum. Later in 1916 I 

 recorded ^, bones which probably represented about six individuals 

 unearthed by Theodoor de Booy^ at San Pedro de Macoris on the 

 south coast of the island about 60 kilometers east of Santo Domingo 

 City, and other material, probably representing three individuals, 

 which Dr. W. L. Abbott had recently dug from the same deposits 

 at San Lorenzo Bay that had been examined by Gabb 46 years 

 before. 



While material for verifying the accuracy of F. Cuvier's diagnosis 

 of the genus Plagiodontia was supplied by these discoveries it re- 

 mained an open question whether or not the animal's extinction, 

 apparently threatened at the period of Ricord's visit, had actually 

 taken place. Vague accounts of a living rodent which might be 

 either a Plagiodontia or an introduced agouti^ have not infrequently 

 been brought back by visitors to the island, but it has been impossible 

 to verify any of them, and the identity of the animal to which they 

 referred could never be determined. 



At last through the persistent efforts of Doctor Abbott, who 

 systematically explored both the Haitian and the Dominican Re- 

 publics during the years 1916 to 1923,^ it has been shown that the 

 genus Plagiodontia still retains its place in the living fauna of the 

 West Indies. On December 2, 1923 Doctor Abbott wrote me from 

 Jovero, southeast of the entrance to Samana Bay: 



Have at last had luck with the Hutia (Plagiodontia?). Up to the present 

 have secured 13, besides 3 embryos. There are skins and skeletons of 10 adults 

 and 3 young in formalin. I was at Guarabo, a settlement in Savannas 10 miles 

 east of this place, and an old man, stimulated by an offer of $5 apiece, brought 

 me 11. He caught them with dogs in hollow trees down near a lagoon near sea 

 shore. Females all pregnant, one fetus at a time. It was miserable at Guarabo, 

 mosquitoes awful, mud and rain most of the time, so we came back here. Another 

 brought me two Hutias last night from about 3 miles west of Jovero. The 

 Hutias must still be abundant in some districts. The Dominicans don't seem 

 to eat them but some dogs hunt them. They can climb to some extent. They 

 are doomed with the coming of the mongoose. Their slow breeding will prob- 

 ably help their extinction. 



Though it was evident from this letter that an important discovery 

 had been made the possibility remained that the Hutia of the Samana 

 Province might prove to be an Isolohodon and not a Plagiodontia. 

 No living member of the genus Isolohodon has yet been found, but 

 the flesh of /. portoricensis is known to have been used as a com- 



8 Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 66, No. 12, Dec. 7, 1916. 



' An account of the deposits in which these bones were found was published by de Booy in 1919: " Sant^ 

 Domingo Kitchen-Midden and Burial Mound," Indian Notes and Monographs, vol. 1, No. 2 (New York 

 He ye Foundation). 



8 The Brazilian Dasyprocta aguti has been successfully established on St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (Miller 

 Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 54, p. 508, Oct. 15, 1918). 



» For brief accounts of Doctor Abbott's work in this region see Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 66, No. 17, 

 pp. 36-39, 1917; vol. 72, No. 1, pp. 34-36, 1920; vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 43-47, 1921; vol. 72, No. 15, pp. 44^7, 1922; 

 vol. 74, No. 5, pp. 62-63, 1923; vol. 76, No. 10, pp. 43-47, 1924. 



