658 W. D. MATTHEW ORIGIN OF THE ANTILLEAN MAMMALS 



the order or derivable from anything known to have inhabited Xorth 

 America in the later Tertiary. 



Most of these North American groups invaded South America in the 

 Pliocene and are part of its later fauna. In the Miocene and early Ter- 

 tiary they are not found in South America, but their place is taken by 

 a number of other groups. In place of perissodactyls, artiodactyls, and 

 proboscideans were a number of groups of hoofed animals peculiar to Ter- 

 tiary South America — the toxodonts, typotheres, litopterns, homalodon- 

 totheres, astrapotheres, pyrotheres. In place of tlie true Carnivora is a 

 variety of marsupial carnivores (Borhyaenidse) paralleling the true car- 

 nivores in structure and taking their place in the fauna.^ All of these 

 abundant and varied groups of ungulates and pseudo-Carnivora are lack- 

 ing from the Antillean fauna, nor do the rodents represent more than 

 two or possibly three of the numerous hystricomorph rodent stocks of 

 Miocene South America, while the edentates represent only one group of 

 the ground-sloths, the three or four other ground-sloth groups, as well 

 as the several kinds of armadillos and the glyptodonts, being quite unrep- 

 resented. 



THE IN8ECTIV0RA 



It appears to be reasonably certain that the i^ntillean rodents and 

 edentates came from South America and from Tertiary South America. 

 Hystricomorph rodents and edentates are unquestionably South Amer- 

 ican Tertiary types, which invaded ISTorth America when the two conti- 

 nents were joined, toward the end of the Tertiary. The insectivores, 

 however, are more probably derivable from North American sources; 



2 A similar but distinct group of marsupial carnivores (Dasyuridse and Thylacinidae) 

 developed in Australia in absence of true Carnivora and still survives tbere. 



Note.— In this paper no account is taken of animals which may have been brought 

 to the islands by man, whether intentionally or by accident, in post-Columbian or pre- 

 historic time. Some of these have evolved under insular conditions into races distinct 

 enough to be recorded as species or subspecies. The majority are identical with species 

 of North or South America, Europe, Africa, etcetera. Some are known to have been 

 introduced ; others may be so explained by reason of associations of one kind or another. 

 The formation of distinct races, such as are classed as species by modern mammalogists, 

 does not necessarily take many centuries under these conditions^ — as witness the Porto 

 Santo (Madeira) rabbits and other instances. Some of these supposedly introduced 

 forms may have been brought in through natural means and be truly indigenous, al- 

 though not very ancient ; but it is impossible to prove such cases. It seems better here 

 to omit all this doubtful evidence and consider only the fauna that is proved to be 

 indigenous either by occurrence in the Pleistocene cave and spring deposits, by its sharp 

 distinctions from any continental relatives, or by the high improbability that the animal 

 could have been transported through human agency. Dr. G. M. Allen has compiled an 

 annotated list of the W^est Indian mammals which includes both introduced and in- 

 digenous types, and Dr. Thomas Barbour has done the same for the reptilia and batra- 

 chia. The evidence therein summarized will be discussed in a memoir on Cuban fossil 

 mammals now in preparation. 



