Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/452

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424
THE ZOOLOGIST.

NOTES AND QUERIES.


MAMMALIA.

Mammals of Trinidad.—Dr. Percy Kendall's notes on this subject in last month's 'Zoologist,' pp. 341–345, are evidently largely based on experiences in a locality where it was my privilege to collect during March and April, 1893, and I have therefore read them with unusual interest. His capture of Dasyprocta cristata, Desm., struck me as one of especial importance, for I had previously supposed this animal to be restricted to the Lesser Antilles, where its presence has been considered to have a significant bearing on the relation of the fauna of these islands to that of the mainland. I find, however, that the Agouti has been previously recorded from Trinidad by Dr. Sclater,[1] on the basis of two animals presented to the Zoological Society's Gardens in 1885 by T.J. Guy, and one presented in 1891 by R.J.L. Guppy. Both of these presentations were unknown to Dr. Allen and myself when writing our list of the mammals of Trinidad,[2] and I take this opportunity to acknowledge and correct an oversight. In stating that there are but "three marsupials found in Trinidad," Dr. Kendall has evidently overlooked Thylamys carri, described by Dr. Allen and myself from three specimens taken at Caparo in March, 1894.[3] Here also, as in other parts of the island, I found Heteromys anomalus abundant, and not of "local" distribution. Sixty-nine specimens were taken, and the animal was apparently as common in the mountains at Caura as in the lowlands of Savanna Grande.—Frank M. Chapman (American Museum of Natural History, New York).

RODENTIA.

"The Seasonal Changes in the Common Squirrel."—Those who read Mr. Thomas's remarkable paper with this title, published in 'The Zoologist' for 1896, at pages 401–407, will be interested to learn that sixty years earlier the late Edward Blyth appended a striking note on the same subject

  1. 'List of the Vertebrated Animals now or lately living in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London.' Ninth edition, 1896, p. 132.
  2. 'On a Collection of Mammals from Trinidad, with Descriptions of New Species.' Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. v. 1893, pp. 203–234.
  3. 'On a Second Collection of Mammals from the Island of Trinidad, with Descriptions of New Species, and a Note on some Mammals from the Island of Dominica.' Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. ix. 1897, pp. 13–30.