138 J.W.SPENCER RECONSTKUCTION OF ANTILLEAN CONTINENT. 



Bison, and Sinilodon ( Machcdivdits) , have been found. These lists are 

 given by Dr Dall, but ray statements are from a recent interpretation by 

 Professor Cope. 



In the AVest Indies, Salterain* states that about the swamps of Ciego 

 Montero, northeast of Cienfuegos, an abundance of bones of the crocodile 

 and the carapaces of the tortoise have been found (these deposits are prob- 

 ably Pleistocene, but the age is not settled). He also states that the Oryc- 

 totherius (Myomorphus) cuhensis (Pomel) was found in a cave near Matan- 

 zas. This animal is related to the Megalonyx, a peculiar North American 

 type belonging to the Pleistocene period (Cope). In the Anguilla phos- 

 phate deposits three species of Amblyrhiza, Pleistocene rodents as large 

 as Virginia deers, were found by Cope, as also some fragments of birds and 

 other animals. One extinct species of Capromys (Hutia) has been found 

 in a cave at Trinidad, in Cuba (Chapman), but this may have been more 

 recent than the other species. 



It should be remembered that the connection of the Antilles was dur- 

 ing the earlier part of the Pleistocene period, with a high bridge between 

 the northern and southern continents. The following subsidence carried 

 the region below the present altitudes to the extent of from 100 to 700 

 feet, so that even the present islands were very greatly reduced. What- 

 ever effects these changes of level had upon the climate and the modi- 

 fication of food supply, all of the Peace river Floridian mammals, as well 

 as the known Antillean species, became extinct, with one or two ex- 

 ceptions. Indeed, only about 30 per cent of the Pleistocene mammals 

 have anywhere survived to the present day. As the mammalian fauna 

 occurs in beds on Peace river associated with some extinct mollusks, it evi- 

 dently belongs to the older Pleistocene period, long enough ago to favor 

 local variations in forms, if extinction had not occurred probably during 

 the Columbia or Zapata submergence. Therefore beneath the sea, or 

 under the Columbia or Zapata loams, the Pleistocene mammals lie buried, 

 perhaps in some cases to be discovered where the more recent deposits 

 have been washed awa}^ along some river. As Florida did not perpetu- 

 ate its mammalian fauna, the insular West Indies could not have been 

 expected to. At last, it appears that the known mammalian history casts 

 no shadow upon the inferences as to the physical history of the Antillean 

 continent, and indeed the physical evolution throws light upon the dis- 

 tribution and extinction of the mammalian life. 



Of existing species of mammals which are indigenous to Cuba and 

 Haiti, a few words can tell the story. In the two islands there are six 

 species of Capromys (Hutia). This genus of rodents is peculiar to the 

 two islands, with three species in each. It is closely related to a Brazil- 



* Cited before. 



