ZOOLOGICAL 
Zoological Garden will be one of the most de- 
lightful memories of India. The splendid Indian 
Museum, and the tablet marking the historic 
Black Hole, together with the Zoological Gar- 
den, completes the list of definite “sights” which 
Caleutta has to offer to the visitor, although to 
western eyes, every street is an absorbing spec- 
tacle, every native shop a treasured memory. 
SOLENODON. 
Scale 14”=1 inch. 
THE SOLENODON. 
OR the past three years we have watched 
with keen interest and sympathy the scientific 
chase of the elusive Solenodon. For a brief 
period the standing-offer price for living speci- 
mens was $50 each; and for a period, the price 
asked in this country was cheerfully prohibitive. 
But a change has come over the Solenodon 
market. Quite recently Mr. Franklin Adams, 
Secretary of the Bureau of American Republics, 
and his wife, Mrs. Harriet Chalmers Adams, 
the well-known traveller, author and lecturer, 
captured six specimens in Hayti, and brought 
SOCIETY 
BULLETIN. 695 
five of them to New York, alive. Three of them 
were generously presented to the New York 
Zoological Park, and two to the Washington 
Zoological Park. The finest specimen that 
came to us is shown herewith. Since the arrival 
of these specimens we have received news of the 
great success last year of Mr. Thomas Barbour 
in his efforts to Solenodons for the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology, at Cambridge. 
The scientific results secured by him are now 
available to the world in the form of an elabor- 
ate memoir on the Solenodon Dr. 
Glover M. Allen. 
The Solenodon is an animal about two sizes 
smaller than a Virginia opossum, belonging to 
the Order Insectivora, which contains the moles 
and shrews. Its the 
shrews. At present only two species are known, 
one of which is found in Hayti and the other in 
Cuba. In appearance the Haytian animal is 
very odd. It has a very long, slender, conical 
snout; thick legs, and powerful, naked feet and 
claws for digging; a body like an ant-eater, and 
a long, naked, opossum-like tail. Its dentition 
is clearly insectivorian, but its strong teeth and 
really powerful jaws go far beyond the demands 
of an insect bill of fare. The Solenodon does 
not hesitate to crunch and devour a whole Eng- 
lish sparrow, and its best food in captivity is 
said to be the heads of freshly-killed chickens. 
This strange creature is nominally a burrowing 
animal, but it is quite at home in a hollow log, 
or a standing tree with an interior apartment to 
let. 
In captivity, thus far it appears that the life 
of the Solenodon is usually very brief; though 
one specimen has been known to live as long as 
a year. Our experience with our three speci- 
mens has been very tantalizing. All three of 
them died during the first week following their 
arrival, despite the elaborate attention that was 
given them by men skilled in the care of difficult 
animals. Dr. Blair’s autopsy revealed, as the 
cause of death, a large stock of internal para- 
sites of a kind new to him, which had invaded 
the peritoneum, and even the stomach itself, and 
produced acute peritonitis, which was the cause 
of death. 
secure 
genus, by 
nearest relatives are 
Of course the time will come when Solenodons 
will be obtained in goodly numbers, and settled 
down in captivity for exhibition. In such cases 
as the present, a thorough breaking of the spell 
that originally binds every new species soon 
leads to more specimens, and better knowledge 
regarding their care. Five years hence Soleno- 
dons should be as plentiful in zoological gar- 
dens as sloths now are. W. T. H. 
