The Insectivora are represented by the genus _Solenodon_, of which two species are known, one inhabiting Cuba the other Hayti. These are small animals about the size of a cat, with long shrew-like snout, bare rat-like tail, and long claws. Their peculiar dentition and other points of their anatomy shows that they belong to the family Centetidæ, of which five different genera inhabit Madagascar; while there is nothing closely allied to them in any other part of the world but in these two islands. Seals are said to be found on the shores of some of the islands, but they are very imperfectly known. The rodents belong to the family Octodontidæ, or, according to some authors, to the Echimyidæ, both characteristic South American groups. They consist of two genera, _Capromys_, containing three or four species inhabiting Cuba and Jamaica; while _Plagiodontia_ (very closely allied) is confined to Hayti. A peculiar mouse, a species of the American genus _Hesperomys_, is said to inhabit Hayti and Martinique, and probably other islands. A _Dasyprocta_ or agouti, closely allied to, if not identical with, a South American species, inhabits St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and Grenada, and perhaps St. Thomas, and is the only mammal of any size indigenous to the Lesser Antilles. All the islands in which sugar is cultivated are, however, overrun with European rats and mice, and it is not improbable that these may have {64}starved out and exterminated some of the smaller native rodents. _Birds._--The birds of the Antilles, although very inferior in number and variety to those of the mainland, are yet sufficiently abundant and remarkable, to offer us good materials for elucidating the past history of the country, when aided by such indications as geology and physical geography can afford.