Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/373

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NOTES FROM THE WEST INDIES.
345

Echimys trinitatis. Long-tailed Piloui.—Otherwise called the "No-tail Piloui." The fact that some specimens of this species are found to have no tail, which others possess, has led the natives to give to it the second name, under the very excusable belief that it was another species. I understand they are eaten with relish.

Coassus nemorivagus. Deer.—I procured one pair of the horns of this deer, which were said to be the largest ever seen; they measure 5⅛ in. This animal is very plentiful on the borders of the high woods, and does an immense amount of damage to young plantations of cocoa, nutmegs, &c. They are very wary, and though I heard them, and constantly saw their fresh spoor, I never even once got a snap-shot, and I was perpetually on the alert to obtain a complete skin and skull. Very few are ever killed, as they simply scorn the mongrel dogs, who cannot live with them for even a mile, and generally refuse to take up their fresh trail.

There are other points of zoological interest perhaps worthy of note; but, as Mr. Rider Haggard remarks, "that is another story!"